The New Bike

I have lots of kids. They are all so different. Just learning to ride a bike is different for all of them. When Faith was in Kindergarten she was determined that she would learn how to ride a bike all on her own. She begged me to take the training wheels off of Hyrum's 12 inch bike, it was the only one we had. So I finally did and she spent about 2 hours one afternoon and taught herself. I tried to help by offering to hold on, but she would have none of it. Then there is Vilate, she did a similar thing to Faith. She wanted to ride without training wheels, so she begged me to take her training wheels off and then she let me hold on to the bike a few times, but decided that she wanted to do it by herself. So a few weeks after the training wheels were off, she was off and riding all over! Then there is Gloria. She got a new bike, just before Christmas a friend gave us a hand-me-down bike and Gloria loves to sit on it. She cannot figure out how to pedal the thing to save her life. I have tried, and now I have decided that she can just love to sit on it and I am okay with that!!! Then there are the boys. Helaman loves to ride his little bike all around, the problem is that he is just not very fast and he gets really frustrated and angry when everyone else passes him. It gets really ugly really fast!!! And then there is Hyrum. He is my: "If I can't get it the first time, I will never be able to do it" kid. We have been trying to teach him to ride a bike for over a year now. He just doesn't like to do hard things. I can't blame him, most people don't! So, after a year of trying to teach him to ride a bike, he did it this week!!! Then he promptly reminded me that a few months ago as incentive, I said that when he did learn to ride a bike we would go to the store and he could pick out a brand new bike!! Oops!!!!! Why do they have to remember everything that you say, unless it involves cleaning or homework? Well, we did it on Friday. I took all 6 kids with me and we went to Toys-R-Us and Hyrum was given a budget and he did an awesome job. He was able to get a new bike, helmet and knee and elbow pads. On Saturday morning we put his bike together and he got to ride it for about an hour in the afternoon!! It was so cool!!

The great thing was that Vilate and Faith were both cheering him on and they were so excited that he got a new bike. I love it when they are happy for eachother!!