The Unbearable Lightness of Bike-Riding
Oh, I curse myself for not writing this down when I first thought about it, way back in the summer. I even wrote myself some notes about what to say and how it all came about, to which I refer in this writing, but I don't know if I'll be able to convey the exhilaration of Ellen's ascension to bike-riding maven. But let me try.
We've included summer trips to New York (particularly Long Island) since we've been married, and certainly since we've had kids. Usually, the trip involves some time in Pt. Lookout (AM's mother's beachhouse) and a visit with Tom and Julie Sica and their kids. Tom was my college roommate, Julie was AM's and were were famously close back in the day -- really, still are. Usually, we visited with the Sicas at Tom's family's place in Sag Harbor, in the Hamptons. It's not what you're thinking; we don't "hang" with the Hanks and Spielbergs, and the place is really a pretty quaint "shack." But it's a nice place to go, and we hit the beach, the Shelter Island golf course, do a little fishing, usual beach getaway stuff. However, we have gone a couple of times to the Sica's real house, first in Connecticut and now in Albany.
Way back in 1999 or 2000, due to some scheduling issue with Sag Harbor, we visited Albany for the first time. It was at their house, in a great wide-open neighborhood full of colonial clapboard-white houses with black shutters, broad empty asphalt streets without curbs or sidewalks, that Gina learned to ride a bike. It wasn't hard to teach her. She was committed to learning, and determined to work through it. She fell a couple of times but was undeterred, and picked it up fairly quickly. She's always been physically adept, and I thought she would "get it" pretty easily, so my lesson for her was to keep doing 2 things: pedal and steer. As I ran along with her holding onto the bike seat, or with a hand on her shoulder or neck, I'd repeat the mantra: "pedal and steer, pedal and steer." She got it. Definitely got it.
I knew with Ellen it would be a different process. Ellen, closing in on her 9th birthday, was substantially older than Gina, who learned around her 6th or 7th birthday. And Ellen is just tougher to teach, since she can't cope with the unknown or unexpected like Gina can. But like it was with getting her to ski in 2004, we started with laying the groundwork early. We had her riding her bike with training wheels as much as we could, we talked about her being a "big girl" and riding a two-wheeler, and we set it out there as a goal for her: one that would take some work and some trial and error, but one that she could and would attain.
Well, it wasn't easy. The Sicas got a bike from a neighbor that would be good size-wise for Ellen, and she and I spent a little time with me holding handlebars and seat and running alongside her to get her used to the feel. But as with her training-wheel bike, she was dependent on my support, and didn't even try to balance on her own. My mantra with Gina ("pedal and steer") certainly wasn't going to work with Ellen; she would pedal and steer, but it was as if she was in a pedal-car or Cozy Coupe: she didn't get the need to keep upright or steer in a way to regain or keep her balance. So, for Ellen, there was a new mantra: "pedal, steer, and balance." But after an hour or so the first day, I was much less than hopeful. If she started to lean to the left, she just kept leaning until I pushed her back upright, and if she started to lean to the right, she just kept leaning until I pulled her back upright. And when the lean got too far, she would take her feet off the pedals to try to catch herself, which kept her from doing the first part of the mantra ("pedal") as well as increased the weight disparity toward the side she was falling toward (if she was falling left and put her left foot out, it just made her fall more and faster to the left). It wasn't as if she wasn't trying; it was as if she just didn't get it.
The next day started out a little more hopefully, but not too much. On the hopeful side, she was willing (if not exactly eager) to get back after it. But the lean was still there, as was the lack of balance. She started to get it with trying to balance her body, but she was doing it only with her body above the bike. In other words, if the bike started to lean left, she would lean her body from the waist up severely to the right, but wouldn't pull the bike that way, so she looked like a pretzel. And that mostly pushed the bike further out of balance. And she kept taking her feet off the pedals, against the first lesson of the mantra. Several times she jumped off the bike and ran back into the house.
But most importantly, each time, she came back out. She kept telling me she was sorry. I tried to keep my frustration in check (not completely successfully, but not bad for me), mainly because I thought I could tell what kept bringing her back to try again: she didn't was to disappoint me. She was scared and frustrated and angry in the way that she can get more than anyone, but she was most worried about disappointing me. I kept after her about the "three rules" (the mantra of pedal, steer and balance), and she started to get it. She would go for 5 yards with my hands off her, and she'd start to tip and take her feet off the pedals. "Pedal, steer and balance," I'd yell while I caught her. "You can't pedal if your feet are off the pedals, and I'm here to catch you, so don't worry about that." Soon 5 yards became 10, and ten, 20. She still occasionally had the pretzel bend trying to keep her balance, but started to get the feeling for keeping the bike under her and steering out of trouble.
Finally, she was able to make it all the way down the street one direction. We'd stop at the end, and she'd say, "OK, one more time down and then we stop." I'd turn the bike around (picking up both her and the bike and swinging them around to face the way we'd just come), and off we'd go. Occasionally I'd have to reach out for her, but she was mostly on her own. We'd get to the other end of the street, and she'd say, "OK, one more time down and then we stop." I think she was internally struggling; she wanted the whole process to be over, but she knew she was right on the cusp of beating this thing. As long as there was the prospect of it all being over just around the corner, she could deal with "one more time."
At one point, she told me, "Daddy, there's more than 3 rules." Huh? "There's more than pedal, steer, and balance. There's also 'balance and forward momentum.' That's the 4th rule. That's from Strawberry Shortcake." In preparation for the summer trip, we bought a portable DVD player, as well as a few DVDs for the trip. One of the DVDs was a Strawberry Shortcake video, in which one of the characters apparently learns to ride a bike. Of course, since I'm usually driving, when the kids are watching videos or DVDs in the car, I just hear them and don't see them (and I definitely try not to pay attention, either). But I had missed that in this video. So, we're on a trip where a big part of the trip is going to be trying to teach Ellen to ride a bike, and here I've got video support that I don't even know is there. I thought I had adapted my bike-riding-teaching mantra to help Ellen out, but Strawberry Shortcake did me one better. Propinquity? Serendipidy? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that might have been what got her over the hump.
Ellen's life is, in a lot of ways, out of balance. Through no fault of her own, easy stuff is hard, and hard stuff is pretty much impossible. I'm constantly inspired by her ability to get done what she gets done; if you looked at it objectively, she's behind her peers in a lot of ways, but if you look at it subjectively, at what she's got to get over, she's way ahead. As for forward momentum, milestones like learning to ride a bike show she's got it going for her. Maybe that's what drives her, ultimately: balance, and forward momentum.
Ultimately, her desire not to disappoint me kept her getting back on the bike. And ultimately, her faith that I would catch her got her to keep her feet on the pedals, so she could learn how to balance. Maybe it's egotistical to look at it this way, but I think it's so: she loved me so much that she couldn't disappoint me, and knew I loved her so much I wouldn't let her fall.
Now, I'm writing this December 21st. Since we returned to Dallas, Ellen has been a bike-riding fool. It's great living on a cul-de-sac, since the kids can ride up and down the street with little concern for traffic (other than the teenagers at the end of the street). It is obviously liberating for her to feel the freedom of riding, and she just loves it. Her skills and balance have gotten so good that she now rides Gina's "mini bike," with its 5-inch wheels, around inside the house. Mary has been joining her, to such a degree that she actually wore out the training wheels on her tiny first-rider bike, and I had to move Ellen up to the next-bigger bike and put training wheels on Ellen's (former) bike for Mary to ride. Last Sunday, December 18, on the day of her 5th birthday party, Mary joined the ranks of bike-riders. She had been riding with training wheels on the bike outside, but had been "scooting around" inside the house on the tiny bike that had worn out its training wheels. She would push off with both feet, coast, and keep her balance. Then she would occasionally try to pedal. "I can ride," she said, so I brought the tiny bike down to the street and let her try, and she did it. Last night, I took the training wheels off the small bike. For the last time.
We've included summer trips to New York (particularly Long Island) since we've been married, and certainly since we've had kids. Usually, the trip involves some time in Pt. Lookout (AM's mother's beachhouse) and a visit with Tom and Julie Sica and their kids. Tom was my college roommate, Julie was AM's and were were famously close back in the day -- really, still are. Usually, we visited with the Sicas at Tom's family's place in Sag Harbor, in the Hamptons. It's not what you're thinking; we don't "hang" with the Hanks and Spielbergs, and the place is really a pretty quaint "shack." But it's a nice place to go, and we hit the beach, the Shelter Island golf course, do a little fishing, usual beach getaway stuff. However, we have gone a couple of times to the Sica's real house, first in Connecticut and now in Albany.
Way back in 1999 or 2000, due to some scheduling issue with Sag Harbor, we visited Albany for the first time. It was at their house, in a great wide-open neighborhood full of colonial clapboard-white houses with black shutters, broad empty asphalt streets without curbs or sidewalks, that Gina learned to ride a bike. It wasn't hard to teach her. She was committed to learning, and determined to work through it. She fell a couple of times but was undeterred, and picked it up fairly quickly. She's always been physically adept, and I thought she would "get it" pretty easily, so my lesson for her was to keep doing 2 things: pedal and steer. As I ran along with her holding onto the bike seat, or with a hand on her shoulder or neck, I'd repeat the mantra: "pedal and steer, pedal and steer." She got it. Definitely got it.
I knew with Ellen it would be a different process. Ellen, closing in on her 9th birthday, was substantially older than Gina, who learned around her 6th or 7th birthday. And Ellen is just tougher to teach, since she can't cope with the unknown or unexpected like Gina can. But like it was with getting her to ski in 2004, we started with laying the groundwork early. We had her riding her bike with training wheels as much as we could, we talked about her being a "big girl" and riding a two-wheeler, and we set it out there as a goal for her: one that would take some work and some trial and error, but one that she could and would attain.
Well, it wasn't easy. The Sicas got a bike from a neighbor that would be good size-wise for Ellen, and she and I spent a little time with me holding handlebars and seat and running alongside her to get her used to the feel. But as with her training-wheel bike, she was dependent on my support, and didn't even try to balance on her own. My mantra with Gina ("pedal and steer") certainly wasn't going to work with Ellen; she would pedal and steer, but it was as if she was in a pedal-car or Cozy Coupe: she didn't get the need to keep upright or steer in a way to regain or keep her balance. So, for Ellen, there was a new mantra: "pedal, steer, and balance." But after an hour or so the first day, I was much less than hopeful. If she started to lean to the left, she just kept leaning until I pushed her back upright, and if she started to lean to the right, she just kept leaning until I pulled her back upright. And when the lean got too far, she would take her feet off the pedals to try to catch herself, which kept her from doing the first part of the mantra ("pedal") as well as increased the weight disparity toward the side she was falling toward (if she was falling left and put her left foot out, it just made her fall more and faster to the left). It wasn't as if she wasn't trying; it was as if she just didn't get it.
The next day started out a little more hopefully, but not too much. On the hopeful side, she was willing (if not exactly eager) to get back after it. But the lean was still there, as was the lack of balance. She started to get it with trying to balance her body, but she was doing it only with her body above the bike. In other words, if the bike started to lean left, she would lean her body from the waist up severely to the right, but wouldn't pull the bike that way, so she looked like a pretzel. And that mostly pushed the bike further out of balance. And she kept taking her feet off the pedals, against the first lesson of the mantra. Several times she jumped off the bike and ran back into the house.
But most importantly, each time, she came back out. She kept telling me she was sorry. I tried to keep my frustration in check (not completely successfully, but not bad for me), mainly because I thought I could tell what kept bringing her back to try again: she didn't was to disappoint me. She was scared and frustrated and angry in the way that she can get more than anyone, but she was most worried about disappointing me. I kept after her about the "three rules" (the mantra of pedal, steer and balance), and she started to get it. She would go for 5 yards with my hands off her, and she'd start to tip and take her feet off the pedals. "Pedal, steer and balance," I'd yell while I caught her. "You can't pedal if your feet are off the pedals, and I'm here to catch you, so don't worry about that." Soon 5 yards became 10, and ten, 20. She still occasionally had the pretzel bend trying to keep her balance, but started to get the feeling for keeping the bike under her and steering out of trouble.
Finally, she was able to make it all the way down the street one direction. We'd stop at the end, and she'd say, "OK, one more time down and then we stop." I'd turn the bike around (picking up both her and the bike and swinging them around to face the way we'd just come), and off we'd go. Occasionally I'd have to reach out for her, but she was mostly on her own. We'd get to the other end of the street, and she'd say, "OK, one more time down and then we stop." I think she was internally struggling; she wanted the whole process to be over, but she knew she was right on the cusp of beating this thing. As long as there was the prospect of it all being over just around the corner, she could deal with "one more time."
At one point, she told me, "Daddy, there's more than 3 rules." Huh? "There's more than pedal, steer, and balance. There's also 'balance and forward momentum.' That's the 4th rule. That's from Strawberry Shortcake." In preparation for the summer trip, we bought a portable DVD player, as well as a few DVDs for the trip. One of the DVDs was a Strawberry Shortcake video, in which one of the characters apparently learns to ride a bike. Of course, since I'm usually driving, when the kids are watching videos or DVDs in the car, I just hear them and don't see them (and I definitely try not to pay attention, either). But I had missed that in this video. So, we're on a trip where a big part of the trip is going to be trying to teach Ellen to ride a bike, and here I've got video support that I don't even know is there. I thought I had adapted my bike-riding-teaching mantra to help Ellen out, but Strawberry Shortcake did me one better. Propinquity? Serendipidy? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that might have been what got her over the hump.
Ellen's life is, in a lot of ways, out of balance. Through no fault of her own, easy stuff is hard, and hard stuff is pretty much impossible. I'm constantly inspired by her ability to get done what she gets done; if you looked at it objectively, she's behind her peers in a lot of ways, but if you look at it subjectively, at what she's got to get over, she's way ahead. As for forward momentum, milestones like learning to ride a bike show she's got it going for her. Maybe that's what drives her, ultimately: balance, and forward momentum.
Ultimately, her desire not to disappoint me kept her getting back on the bike. And ultimately, her faith that I would catch her got her to keep her feet on the pedals, so she could learn how to balance. Maybe it's egotistical to look at it this way, but I think it's so: she loved me so much that she couldn't disappoint me, and knew I loved her so much I wouldn't let her fall.
Now, I'm writing this December 21st. Since we returned to Dallas, Ellen has been a bike-riding fool. It's great living on a cul-de-sac, since the kids can ride up and down the street with little concern for traffic (other than the teenagers at the end of the street). It is obviously liberating for her to feel the freedom of riding, and she just loves it. Her skills and balance have gotten so good that she now rides Gina's "mini bike," with its 5-inch wheels, around inside the house. Mary has been joining her, to such a degree that she actually wore out the training wheels on her tiny first-rider bike, and I had to move Ellen up to the next-bigger bike and put training wheels on Ellen's (former) bike for Mary to ride. Last Sunday, December 18, on the day of her 5th birthday party, Mary joined the ranks of bike-riders. She had been riding with training wheels on the bike outside, but had been "scooting around" inside the house on the tiny bike that had worn out its training wheels. She would push off with both feet, coast, and keep her balance. Then she would occasionally try to pedal. "I can ride," she said, so I brought the tiny bike down to the street and let her try, and she did it. Last night, I took the training wheels off the small bike. For the last time.
posted by Jeff at
10:52 AM
