Leo can ride his bike

On May 9th, Mothers' Day here in the US, Leo decided that he wanted to ride his bike without training wheels. David and I thought that he was capable of it last summer, but he is at times a cautious child, so we decided to let him decide when he was ready. An older kid from across the street convinced him to give it a try last summer and took one training wheel off before Leo changed his mind. So he's been riding his bike since then with one training wheel, which was somewhat comical to watch.

Then he decided to take the other training wheel off and give it a try. About a week earlier David had seen his great balance on his scooter, and commented that he should do fine with riding his bike. He smiled when hearing that. I was in the garage when he announced that he was taking his training wheel off. I asked if he wanted to go to the park and try it on the grass but he said no and asked me to watch him. We didn't realize that David was upstairs in the laundry room and heard the conversation and was watching out the window.

He took the training wheel off and rode away, doing fine the very first time. After a few minutes we went inside to surprise David. He told us that he had seen it all from the window. We got the camcorder and recorded his first day of riding his bike. We were outside standing in the rain when David said "Why are we out here in the rain?" I answered "Because this is the one time in our life that our only child learns to ride his bike, and I don't care about the rain."

Leo's been spending as much time as possible on his bike. We plan to get him a larger one soon. Yesterday he went with me when I went jogging, which he has wanted to do for years it seems. We tried it once on his scooter but he couldn't keep up and had trouble going up and down the sidewalk so he gave it up soon after starting. He was so happy to finally be able to come with me yesterday. He told me three or four times how much he was enjoying it. I cut my run short, about 4 1/2 miles, and he had to rest near the end. I wanted to make it shorter but he insisted that he could do the last loop around the neighborhood. It was fun for me too. He makes me a proud and happy Papa (his name for me.)