First, on Sunday, ES told us that he would mow the lawn for us for 50 cents. I said, "DEAL!" before he could give it a second thought.
Okay, so he's not QUITE strong enough to push the mower up-slope... YET. He's getting there, though.
I walked along with him and helped him with the tough spots. We were about half way done when he stopped, out of breath, looked at me with beads of sweat running down his temples, and said, "Now that I know how hard this is, I might have to charge you more than 50 cents." I told him once he learns to push the lawn mower in a straight line, I'd happily pay him more to mow the lawn. The lines in the lawn looked like an intoxicated baboon was pushing the mower, but I'm not complaining. I'm just happy he was interested and willing to do it. The straight lines will come with time - he's anal retentive like I am.
Over the weekend we also spent some time working with ES trying to get him to ride his bike without training wheels. Then, last night after I got home from work, that magical moment happened where he took off on his own without me or LW holding on to him.
Credit actually goes to LW for this achievement. She had him get used to just coasting in a straight line on the very slight downhill slope of our street with his legs out straight (feet just skimming off the ground). Once he got so he could just ride in a straight line, balanced with his legs out straight on either side, all he had to do was lift his legs up onto the pedals and start pedaling.
He's still pretty rough on the concepts of turning (the whole tilting over while turning thing freaks him out) and of getting started on his own from a stopped position, but he and I worked on turning and starting for a while last night. After he rode to the end of our cul-de-sac and back to our house four or five times with me running along beside him, he asked me to get my bike out and we rode to the end of our street and back several times. We stayed up way past his bedtime, but I remember when I first learned to ride a bike and I didn't want to do anything but ride and ride and ride some more. It was fun riding up and down the street with him for the first time on his own two-wheeler.
Hooray for ES! Keep up the good work!
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4 comments:
Congrats ES the rail trails await.
"The lines in the lawn looked like an intoxicated baboon was pushing the mower" humm - tell Brian mine sometimes look like that also.
"We stayed up way past his bedtime"
This is the definition of summer & time with Dad! He will never forget this!
Great job on the big steps...WOO HOO! Tell him if we're ever fortunate enough to be stationed near the amazing "S" family, we'll be happy to hire him!
I just love seeing/hearing about kids made the transition to 2 wheels, that's a tough step!
Update on the bike riding: You should see ES now, just a couple of days later and he is setting the street on fire he's pedaling so fast and spinning around in a tight circle at the end of our cul-de-sac. I'm grimacing and waiting for his first real crash to see how he recovers from it...
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