New Skills

Apple learned how to ride her bike this week. Yay! It took some tough love from Luke and I though. She was absolutely terrified. Last year, she was doing really good on her training wheels and would zip around all over the place, but then she had a pretty bad crash going around a downhill corner. After that she would go ridiculously slow and completely stop and get off her bike every time there was the slightest curve or hill. It was really sad.

She really wanted to learn. But we did have to threaten her to get her to push past her fear. I feel bad. I think I actually said, "If you don't get back on your bike right now, you will be grounded from everything for a week! You aren't allowed to quit this!" She would get scared and bolt. She's so funny. She's a runner. If she's upset about something, she will run as fast as she can and hide somewhere. We were teaching her on the school playground so she would take off running across the soccer field. It didn't take much to set her off. I'm really glad that we learned how to teach bike-riding with a kid who was a little more cooperative. If we didn't know what we were doing, we probably would have given up.

To start with, I had to stand about two feet away from her and Luke would push her and I would catch her. Even that made her a little panicky. At the end of the day we got her to pedal and I could back up about 10 feet from where we started. It wasn't much progress, but it did teach her to trust us. So the next day, we didn't have to threaten her to get her into the seat. She was still super hesitant and would put her feet down way too much, but we got her to pedal all the way across the playground by the end of the day. She still needed a boost from Luke (I didn't do it right) and I had to be right next to her the whole way, but she was figuring it out. It was awesome to see the difference in attitude a little confidence gave her. She would still say, "I can't do it!" and  stomp away with her arms folded, but at least she didn't try to run away and would come back by herself. I told her every time she said, "I can't" she would get a time out, but since by the time we got home, she was laughing and excited about her progress, I decided I wouldn't enforce the two-hour timeout she had earned. :)

The third day was magic and it all came together for her. We told her that we were going to work on starting and stopping on her own and then the next day we would work on turning. But once she figured out pushing herself off, she didn't need us at all anymore. She was laughing and whooping and bragging for the rest of the evening as she zoomed all over. Okay, not quite zoomed. She still goes really slow. :) But it was a joy to watch her, especially since it was so different than the way she started.

Strawberry decided to get out her skates while we were out there and learned how to turn and stop at the same time as Apple on her bike. It was so cute to hear, "Watch me! Did you just see that! Look what I can do!" from both the girls. Love it!

The older girls also just finished a month of swim lessons and Apple is now a swimmer. Yay! That was much easier to get her to do because we had spent some summers at my mom and dad's pool in Arizona. Strawberry was already a really good swimmer and just learned some better technique. She's been a little mermaid for years and can get dive sticks off the bottom of a 10-foot-pool. Not bad hey? Apple had always used floaties so she had to learn the basics, but she wasn't scared of the water at all and was able to progress very quickly. Her back stroke is pretty awesome. She hasn't quite figured out breathing on her freestyle, but she will stick her face in the water and gets those arms and legs moving with gusto. :) I loved the way her teacher used pool noodles. So cute. :)