And the training wheels are off!

After seeing a younger girl riding without her training wheels last week at the park, Annabel asked if she could take off her training wheels yesterday. "It's time." she said to Kristin.

She was a little bit tentative but certainly up for the challenge. After a few runs back and forth on the driveway with Uncle Rick and I, she was off to a wobbly but auspicious start.

Today we went to the park just before dusk on a cloudy and drizzly cold San Francisco afternoon, and she was riding off on her own in no time. She wasn't the best student in the world, preferring to "do it her way" then to listen to instruction or coaching. That meant falling several times, but not hard and it never seemed to upset her.

As I think back now, she really didn't seem to respond much to feedback at all, whether suggestions for how to improve of just words of encouragement. Once she got going though, she was LOVING riding her bike. When she crossed over from the green center to the red box of the basketball court, I heard her say:

"Annabel Goldman is riding through fields of hot lava!" That was awesome.

When we got back into the car for the ride home I said.

"I'm so proud of you guys! You both learned how to ride on two-wheelers in just one day!"

I sensed that Anabel may have been feeling a bit strange because Gaby too had managed to ride unassisted today.

"and Annabel, you could have learned when you were four and a half too if you had wanted. You never liked the idea of taking off the training wheels."

"I didn't want to then though because no one else had theirs off. But now everyone is taking them off and so I did too".

"You sure did. And it only took you one day too. Awesome job!"

I looked back in the rearview and could easily see that he was proud of herself.