The Bicycling Unicorn

Motherhood never ceases to amaze me.  Every emotion with my children is just so raw and magnified-- love, anger, pride, fear.  And this evening I got to feel 'em all.

While she's looking out the window on the ride home from the beach, Harper randomly announced that we needed to go to the store to buy her a "hull-mut."  We asked why she wanted a helmet, and she responded by saying that when we got home she wanted her daddy to take the training wheels off her bike and that she couldn't ride it until she got a hull-mut.  It was as random as could be since we couldn't think of any of her friends riding their bicycles without training wheels.  So, we assured her we would look into a helmet for her and find the tools to change her bike over to the big girl version.  

I hadn't thought much else of that conversation, but that girl has a memory like an elephant.  She hadn't forgotten.  So a week later while we are walking around in Target picking up a few things, she declares we need to go look at the hull-muts.  We find the outdoor section, and sure enough, they have a row of helmets.  And of course, she picks the gaudiest one-- a sparkly unicorn helmet.

All weekend she talked about riding her big girl bike, and we prepped her by saying she needed "pedal fast" and "stay straight."  She was so excited this morning that she ran down to the garage as soon as she got up to look for her bike.  The weather was gorgeous today, so I text Sam that I thought this evening would be a perfect night for our little unicorn to learn to ride her bike.

Sister eager to go watch Harper 's blooper reel

 

In classic Harper fashion, she started out gung-ho until she realized that she didn't know what she was doing.  She would lean and tip over, lean and tip over.  During one fall, she got a bit tangled in the bike, and when she stood back up, I thought she was going to break the bike in half.  :)  She gets downright angry if she tries to do something and fails.  Angry, angry.  We had to continue to remind her that she was the one in charge; her bike only does what she tells it.

As Harper's "big gift" for Christmas this year, we enrolled her in swim lessons with Miss Dayna for the winter swim session.  As her first lesson was approaching, she was thrilled with the idea of swimming.  And then she got there.  And she hated it.  She didn't want to try it, and repeatedly tried to get out of the pool.  Miss Dayna reassured her, but demanded her effort.  There was no tolerance for "I can't," and Miss Dayna would repeat "Well, we are going to try."  I have learned so much about how to parent, coach, and teach Harper from what I saw in their interactions.  Harper has to be pushed.  She has to be praised.

Dad showing her how it's done

I silently thanked Dayna a million times in my head as we pushed Harper on her bicycle around the baseball diamond at Clearbrook Elementary.  She kept leaning toward whichever side we were holding on to her, so eventually I just started giving her a push and making her feel the consequence of leaning, of what happened when she stopped pedaling.  She'd scream, "I can't do it!" and we would say, "yes, you can, and you're going to try right now." And we would try again.  Sometimes she would fall right over, but eventually she started pedaling a few feet. I loved how as she would start each attempt, Sam would make her yell, "I can do it!" 

Here she is about 45 minutes later...

Can I just tell you that I was not prepared for how I would feel seeing her take off on her little bike in that ridiculous unicorn helmet?  When she pedaled that first 10 feet away from me, and I could see her doing it, really doing it, my mama heart exploded with pride.  I was so thankful that I was wearing sunglasses, so Sam wouldn't make fun of the way all that pride was finding its way out in tears as I hysterically cheered running behind her.  Harper wanted to learn to ride her bike without training wheels, and here she was doing it.  I wonder if there is a more amazing feeling than seeing your child succeed.  I doubt there is.

Though she has a long way to go before she trekking the streets of Roanoke, she made it all the way across the tennis courts.  We will keep building her confidence, trying it a little more each evening.  I am so proud of her.  I am so proud of us, for working through her frustrating "I can't"s, for pushing her without breaking her.  What a big day for our beloved big girl.