Ava’s just started riding her bike to school in the last week. It seems like we’ve waited a long time for our daughter to take to her wheels, but now that she’s up, it’s difficult to get her to slow down. The new method of transportation also seems to have reestablished her friendship with her guy friends in the neighborhood, boys who’ve been biking for a couple years now and who literally and figuratively left Ava in the dust when they took to the road.
Just as when I saw her up on a horse for the first time, watching her pedal off down the road to school in the morning simultaneously astounds and saddens me. Ava gets frustrated so quickly, yet she has a firm resolve that always seems to carry her through whatever task she’s undertaken.
The next step in this journey will be to get Ava riding the classic Schwinn that Poom Poom had refurbished for her. She’s ridden it, but it handles differently than the smaller bike she’s on now, and the handlebars are different, so it’ll take some getting used to. But she’ll manage, as she always does.