Friday, May 16, 2008

The cycling adventures of Maya Chicken

So as I believe I mentioned before, Maya's now off the training wheels and riding her bike. Which is great, 'cause it inspires her brother to go out and ride with her. It's also great, 'cause she's got a couple friends who live near enough that she can ride to their house once she gets a little more comfortable on the bike.

What's not so great is that she's not totally comfortable on the bike. Probably doesn't help that she's riding one with 14" wheels when she should be on a 16" or 20"...that problem will, we hope, be taken care of tomorrow when we trade her current bike with a friend who has a bigger one (but a smaller daughter).

The upshot of this love of being on the bike but not being comfortable on the bike is the newfound need for bandaids. Twice in the last two days she's gone down, both times skinning her left knee. Today's was especially choice, since it was in a gravel alley and the rock or whatever she landed on cut her knee right above the bandaids from yesterday's scrape, and in fact sliced one of them pretty well too.

There is a good side to this, though...she's getting tougher. She cries when she crashes, she yells at me when I ask to look at the wound, but eventually she realizes that she can't just sit in the middle of the road and so gets up, shakes it off, and gets back on the bike.

And really, isn't that what the whole "learning to ride" thing is about?

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