The Biking Bug

I have to admit something dreadful.  Our 6-year-old and our 5-year-old both still ride their bikes with training wheels.  There.  I'm hanging my head in shame, but I swear they'll excel in something else to make up for this.  I only say this to qualify any pictures in this post.  You'll see many with very big girls with training wheels on their bikes.  In my defense, though, apparently Suri Cruise still has training wheels, too.  She's Megan's celebrity baby, in that they were born within a few weeks of each other :)  And...I'm pretty sure that's all they have in common.  But, if Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes deem 6 years old to be an acceptable age to still have those wheels, who are we to argue?

Truthfully, they may keep those training wheels for some time.  The necessary ingredients for teaching this skill (patience, arms, time and safe biking area) are all in short supply around here!  Even when we have three of those four things, we usually have a needy baby to hold or keep safe. And, most often, we don't have wide open spaces to practice pedaling and balancing and all of that good stuff that goes into learning this life skill.  We can just add it to the list of things to feel guilty about!  The list would be entitled, "If we didn't have five kids, we could...(fill in the blank)."  Hopefully, having training wheels a little longer than their buddies will be the worst of the tragedies on this list, and the longer list will include all of the reasons it's pretty awesome to have four sisters!

Anyway, we practice this bike thing when we can!  When we were in Tahoe this summer, we took advantage of the flat, newly paved street in front of our cabin, and only had to deal with an occasional car.  Thanks to Mop and Pop, and the addition of some new little Minnie Mouse bikes for Tessa and Annie, everyone now has bikes and helmets of their own.  The girls loved riding bikes up there, and wanted to be out on their bikes non-stop!  It was also a huge help to have a few extra adults to corral the little bikers.

Megan and Bridget both tried riding without their training wheels, but never got comfortable enough to keep them off. They spent a lot of time at "Daddy's bike shop," with Matt and his little tool box at the end of the driveway, taking off training wheels and then replacing them.  Meanwhile, Tessa and Annie both really learned how to pedal their "big girl" bikes like pros!

Mary is loving her stroller, too!  We dug our single stroller out from under the house where it's been in retirement since Megan was a baby.  We'd been in double stroller mode for so long that I nearly forgot we owned a single stroller!  Mary makes herself very comfortable in there, and the girls get a huge kick out of pushing her.  It's just their size, and it gives us a break :)

Hey, look at us!  Maybe we could be a biking family after all :)

Of course, now that we're home from Tahoe, biking has became a challenge once again.  But, with a little work, we can make it happen.  Er, Daddy can make it happen!  How lucky are these girls to have such a doting dad?  Last weekend he loaded all five of them up, along with their bikes and a picnic lunch that he packed, and headed to a bike trail about 15 minutes away.  There, they rode to their hearts' content!  And they didn't return for a few hours.  It turns out that bike riding is good for loooong naps, too.

If you're a man reading this (I realize this is a big "if"), raise your hand if you think you would be brave/crazy/cool enough to take five little kids on this kind of adventure by yourself.  And, if by chance, you are Matt reading this, then you can give yourself a big pat on the back! ;)  

We're slowly getting these girls ready for the Tour d' San Francisco!  I think it won't be too much longer before we lose a few training wheels, but until then, what's cuter than a pack of little girls riding bikes?  Maybe a pack of little girls on bikes plus one in a stroller!