Bicycle!

The road to Owen riding a bike has not been the truest of paths. We'd hope to skip the training wheel stage entirely because, quite frankly, both of us learned on two wheelers. Sure there was a fair amount of blood involved and it took a while for the skin to grow back, but we liked it. We loved it. So we bought Owen a balance bike for his 3rd birthday, but Owen balked at riding it because it didn't have pedals and begged for a "real" bike. We insisted that he needed to ride the balance bike first and once he got good at it we would upgrade to a big boy bike. Owen chose to continue riding his tricycle instead.

The standoff continued until Spring of this year, when we finally decided to purchase a new bike with training wheels. Unfortunately, around the same time Owen decided to start riding his balance bike in earnest and that he didn't want training wheels but a bike with a kickstand. But we'd opted for the 16" bike which was a little big for Owen to get on and off without the training wheels, so Owen decided to continue riding his balance bike and I began to rethink my whole parenting approach.

But when we got back from Iowa, Owen needed a new pair of shoes which meant a trip to REI. Allen suggested that while there Owen could get his training wheels removed and a kickstand installed. Owen jumped at the chance. Once they got home he donned his helmet and went for an innaugaral ride. While we're still working on stopping (and had one bad run-in with a wall), we're pretty impressed at what little assistance Owen needs from us. And maybe just a little bit sad.