Ah! The Joys of Parenting

One of the things as a parent that you look forward to from when they are babies (especially if you are a Dad) is when you can share some of your favorite activities/sports with your kids. For some parents that is babeball, or football, or soccer, or whatever. For us it is cycling.

The downside is that one of the hardest things to do as a parent is to not push too hard because it can backfire and they may end up hating your beloved activity for the rest of their lives and end up driving a Hummer and voting for some republican who wants to ban bicycles on public roads and trails.

So we are trying to get our youngest one to ride his bicycle w/o training wheels. He is SOOO ready because he flys on his bike with training wheels, you can see that he is hardly on the training wheels when at speed.

So we got out the little bike. This is a little GT Dyno for really little kids


We lowered the seat all the way so he could put both feet on the ground. The thing is he was actually riding this bike full on no training wheels a few weeks ago. But he ate it and now doesn't want to do it.

So we tried again, went out to a nice path totally flat not any people. And was just not into it. We tried bribing w/a treat if he tried hard. But he didn't try hard. Just whined/complained yada yada, so we go home and get no treat.

He just lost it. He gets a nap during the week, but he doesn't nap on weekends. So he was tired and just went over the edge. Pinching, kicking on and on. Here he is tearing apart the mud room where he has his timeout bench


He proceeded to tear all the jackets down too. He stayed in there until he picked them all up and put the bench back.

I decided to take the pedals off the bike and just see if he would scooter around on it. But it's not worth doing now.

It sucks because he can do it. If he just wanted to. Of course we want him to, we want him to grow to ride so we can go ride together and then race together and then go pro so we can go to the national races and sit in the chair under the awning next to the pro trailer.

That's my boy. Other parents live for the day they can sit in the football stands and little Johnny catches the touchdown that wins State. Me. I just want him to ride his bike, and love it like I love it.

Just like all things. Patience. But if we didn't push a little, than he'd never try at all. So it is a fine fine line you walk as a parent. Push some but hold back some. And sometimes you just can't win.