Overcoming

My big girl is so funny. They all are, but she is something else. She looked at me last night and said, "Please don't blog about this." She was looking at her half empty glass. I was looking at her overflowing glass. My reply was, "I was going to talk about your amazing spirit. About how you faced your fear, again, how brave you were, but if you don't want me to write about that, I won't." The response: "I wasn't looking at it like that." Of course you weren't. That's my job.

The boy is my daredevil. There isn't anything he won't jump off of, or jump onto, or jump into. You get the picture. The baby, not knowing any better sometimes, follows right behind him. I'm working on her. The big girl, though, is not so much into danger. She says she is weak and scared. That may start changing soon. Lord, help me.

Yesterday was play date Monday. The families in our co-op switched a bunch of kids around. The boy was at my friend D's house. They went to walk the dog and the boy and his friend rode bikes during this grand excursion. The boy, so you know, taught himself how to ride a bike at the park one day. Do you know what we came home with? A bike. It was the bike he rode on the dog walk. They were giving it away free to a good home. You can't beat that with a stick. It's just a little small, but it will do him just fine. He rode that bad boy around until I practically had to pull him off of it. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the big girl is watching him with her steady brown eyes.

My kids have never really ridden bikes before. Our last house was on a busy corner on a busy street. While the neighborhood was very residential, the street we lived on was a cut off between two roads. We never let the kids ride bikes in the street because it was too busy. We could have taken them somewhere and ridden, but what a pain in the butt that is. It rarely happened. They had the basics from riding bikes that belonged to other people. Most of those had training wheels. Until the boy jumped on the bike at the park one day, he had never been on a bike without training wheels.

The big girl decided she was going to ride that bike. Confidence is not her strongest attribute. It took all of three minutes for her and the boy to get into an argument that had her slamming (SLAM!) the back door as she stormed into the house and stomped (STOMP!STOMP!STOMP!)back to her room. He was crying on the front steps screaming about how he was NEVER GOING TO HELP her AGAIN. That went well. Then my phone rang. It was hubby and he was on his way home. Great, you need to do me a huge favor when you get home. Thankfully, he was on his way. I got off the phone and tried to placate a steaming mad girl and an equally angry young man.

To make a long story short (too late), hubby got home and took the boy and the big girl down to the road to ride scooters and a bike. The baby wanted to stay home and I couldn't leave her alone. I missed all the fun, but the big girl came home riding a bike! I was so happy at hubby. I was even more excited for the big girl. The beaming smile, the air of can do surrounding her was so wonderful. I even teared up.

Hubby said she was bound and determined to ride that bike. She lacked the confidence to do it on her own. Hubby helped her get through whatever was bugging her and she got on that bike and rode it. And rode it. And rode it until the boy demanded she give it back. She was fine with that. She grabbed her fear, knocked it down and got on that bike. Hubby said it was awesome to watch her. She was so happy, she had to show me. "Mama, mama, watch, watch!!" At eleven, she doesn't say that to me much anymore.

I am so proud of her. She is my analytical one. She has to weigh the pros and cons. She has to over think everything before she does it. Then she's thought about it so much, she won't do it. She has faced so many of her fears. She says she's not brave, but I remind her of teaching herself how to swim, swimming across the pool at camp, riding a bike, and a million other things she has accomplished. She is amazing and doesn't even know it. She knows better now. Every fear she would bring up, I would remind her of a time when she faced it and won.

That's it for today. If I had had my camera, you know I would have posted the pictures.

Have a great day!