Aaaaannnd We’re (Eventually) Off

Saoirse’s bike is too small for her. We were going to get one for her at the beginning of the summer, a new one, but never got around to it, and then the idea of just going out and buying her a bike (with gift cards she’d gotten for a birthday, but still) just sort of chafed at my “we will not spoil our children, nosirree” brain, and I thought maybe, just maybe, we could stretch this bike out until Christmas when it could turn into Santa’s surprise.

It’s really, really small.

She’s been bugging us (I mean, asking, usually while I’m cooking dinner or Dave’s on a call or I’m elbows-deep in a dirty diaper) to take off her training wheels, because she’s been beyond ready to get them off, but–as appears to be our custom–we just hadn’t gotten around to it. But Dave did this morning, quietly, in between conference calls. I was cleaning up the kitchen (always, always, do I even need to tell you I was in the kitchen?), about to pop out and see how the teaching-SK-to-ride was going, when David’s voice came through the open window: “Hey, Leah. You want to see this?”

And there was my daughter, riding her bike. Alone. Without training wheels. Without having been actually taught. “How does it feel?” I said. I may have giggled. She looked at me, then down at her front wheel, concentrating. “It’s weird.”

David and I are a sputter-sputter-sputter-ZOOM kind of people. We are not consistent. We are not supremely organized. We slowly, slowly, plug along, and then all of a sudden the whirlwind hits and we’re GOGOGO. Deadline people, Dave and I. Sputter-sputter-zoom.

Quinn had started practicing to ride, too. The training wheels are off, per her request.  Sputter. Sputter.

Looks like it’s a family affair.