What an amazing weekend for G!   She rode, sorta, her bike without training wheels for the first time.   And swam, sorta, on her own.   Neither endeavor was very far, or very elegant, or free of scares.   But all the right motions are coming together, and she can taste the positive effects, which inspire her onward.   I remember my first time turning on a snowboard, getting a heel and a toe turn, and saying to myself if I can just get the third turn I’ll be snowboarding.   I felt the same thing my first steep-and-deep in the crater at Snowbowl…if I can make that 3rd turn, I’ve got it.

The pool has been building building for several weeks now.   She’s been scooping ice cream and picking apples, she’s been blowing bubbles, and putting it all together while I’ve been holding her horizontal.   We started going underwater together for 3 seconds at a time.   It was working, sorta, but the ultimate benefits were not really clear to her, while the fear and discomfort abundantly were.   The breakthrough came when Beckie got in the pool with us and we 3 all went under together, combined with jumping off my shoulders and have one waterwing fall off on landing.   She found a comfort zone just beyond her comfort zone, and next time I urged\pushed her across the pool to mommy, she mostly propelled herself and kept above water on her own.   We did this 3 times.   Not enough for muscle memory, barely enough to go 10 feet, but enough to realize that 3rd turn.

Losing the training wheels was much the same pattern.   Riding on the bumpy grass in the park with knee pads and helmet and an old pair of gloves I cut down hardly seemed the stately pleasure dome of training-wheel-free riding I promised.   She could go 5, maybe 10 seconds at a time.   Every time she would get off her center just a little, the training wheels were not there to catch her, and the result was either a sharp course correction or a fall.   Even with me catching her and putting her down gently, there are only so many falls a littleGirl can make in an evening.   The inevitable owies that come from overconfidence and blasting downhill to the park did nothing to contribute to a healthy hell-bent mindset either.   She is close, but as I challenged Beckie, in need of an alternative voice for her next step.   Just my luck, Beckie will probably be the one to get all the credit.

Next up, snowboarding!

a very happy girl celebrates with all her friends