Adventures in Bike Riding

Greetings from Jill! (The Co-Pilot!) :)

We have had great visiting time with family the past week.  On Thursday, we feel like we had our official “lift off” and we headed down south for Lake Whitney from Wichita Falls with high hopes to make it there before dark.  Well…by the time we finished all of our rearranging in the RV (keep the Christmas stuff, put some things at Alan’s sister’s house, photo albums and keepsakes at his parents house, etc.) it was after 1:30 when we left Wichita Falls.  We also ended up taking a small quick detour to my Mom’s house to drop off a few things.  So- we finally arrived to the campground shortly before 8pm.  We knew it would be difficult to set up after dark, but this definitely confirmed for us that we REALLY need to arrive at each new RV park early in the afternoon, before dark, to set up everything and check out things at the park. 

On Friday we woke up and I took a nice walk around the campground.  There are a lot of RVs here, but it is not crowded at all.  After I got back, we decided to take the boys to the playground area.  After about 5 minutes of playing hide and go seek, Nathanael slid into a patch of stickers.  Poor kid! He was covered with at least 100 stickers on his hands, arms, legs and feet.  He was a tough guy and handled it really well as Alan picked them all off.

So- next we decided to all go on a bike ride.  Have you ever felt that getting ready to ride bikes with children is a lot like getting ready to go play outside in the snow during a Missouri winter?  It takes 30 minutes to get all of the gear on and ready, and then usually the boys are ready to come in after being outside for 5 to 10 minutes.  But- it is something we all must do as parents, right? It is just part of the joys of parenting, and one day we will all look back and have fond memories of these days.

So- this bike ride turned out to be quite the adventure.  We decided that I would take the two little boys around the campground at their pace, and Alan would take the older two boys to the basketball courts to play some ball for a while.  Now- I will be totally honest here…the selfish side of me really would love to just take off fast and enjoy riding down all the hills.  But- I know I need to take care of my precious boys, so I make sure to help Caleb and Joshua walk their bikes up and down “steep” hills over and over again throughout our bike ride. We arrived at what I would call I very small hill and I thought it was about time the boys tried to make it on their own riding their bikes down the hill. Well- I COMPLETELY underestimated how steep the hill was .  Caleb stops his bike before the hill and says, “I’m not going down that hill, Mom” while my sweet little 3 - year old Joshua takes off down the long hill. As his little bicycle with the training wheels takes off speed going faster and faster, I notice he is trying to get off the bike while it is moving. His little legs are almost both swung over to one side.  I quickly tell him to stay on and put on the brakes.  I figure out just a few seconds later that he is totally out of control and cannot stop the bike even after he sits back down the right way. His bike is going so fast I just know he is about to crash.  I quickly get off my bike and throw it to the ground and start sprinting toward him yelling, “Put on the brakes Joshua!” and “Oh dear Jesus, Oh dear Jesus, please protect him!!!!” Now- this was definitely NOT funny at the time…but now that I can tell you that he survived this without a scratch, this next part is just hilarious.  As I am frantically racing toward him trying to catch up as he is speeding down this long, steep hill, he is turning his head back toward me (Yes-he is looking back and not forward at all) and yelling over and over, “I DON”T WANT TO RIDE MY BIKE ANYMORE! I DON’T WANT TO RIDE MY BIKE ANYMORE!!!” I just keep yelling back, “Push back on the pedal brakes Joshua…look where you are going…I’m coming!!!” Somehow he keeps the bike steady down the hill, through the gravel spots, misses hitting a tree and camp site post, and arrives at a campsite through the trees as he comes to a stop…still on the bike…still upright….no falling….NOT A SCRATCH….but as I rush toward him and pull him into my arms thanking God that he is okay, Joshua very clearly says “I don’t want to ride my bike any more Mom.”

         

OHHHH….I felt SO bad for him, but I knew he needed to get right back on the bike and try again to regain his confidence.  So- I look at the path home…it looks fine.  Well- just one minute later, we both end up crashing into each other and landing hard on the pavement.  We sat there in the middle of the path for a little while…both of us with tears coming down our cheeks.  After that, I decided walking our bikes back was a good option after all! We will just try again tomorrow…not on the same path of course!  :)

Let me just say that our day ended a lot better than it started….but that is another blog post…