Bea asked to see some photos from when she was younger, so we went through her blog and looked at various dates, stories, photos and videos!
She thought it was really funny, and we talked about needing to carry on the story!
So this post is Bea’s first entry. What do you want to say Bea?
I want to talk about Willa my dog. She is funny and play bites you. She can run around and kiss me with her wet nose. She can sit on me and she is getting heavier as she grows up. See some photos below.
Doctor visit proved positive regarding her broken arm. Mummy reports they were happy with the mend and were happy to throw the sling away and reduce the cast down to a halfie – basically giving her the elbow movement back.
This meant fresh drawings and a happier child.
Interestingly she has become more dexterous with her right hand through all this; she was predominantly left handed (writing) with occasional right handed (breakfast and soup). It will be interesting to see what happens when the cast comes off in just over a week (frustratingly after her birthday party!).
Meantime here’s the happy patient.
We went for a dog walk and the end of the day was just stunning. The long shadows were wonderful walking across the last field, so after some normal shots we took some photos of a “four armed monster”!!
Couple of photos that were rather nice:
Bea often comes into our bed first thing in the morning – mid week she rarely finds me there, but over the Xmas period I’ve been there every day – mostly being the last person in bed!! So when she jumped on me and ended up laying back on my upright knees, it reminded me of some earlier posts (On the knees morning photos – Aug 2012 & Easy like a Sunday morning – Nov 2012) where I commented on how much she has grown. I explained to her that I used to take these photos so she generously offered a “modern day” pose of the “knee shot”.
Bea was keen to go for a “big girl’s ride” again, so decided to find another bridleway that was a little quieter, and hopefully simpler to navigate, and maybe with some gentle slopes in. Found a good route that was far enough away to mean the bike rack was needed on the car.
I put on my proper bike gear, and found some old cycling shorts from one of the boys for Bea – with proper padding in!
Bea is getting better at the braking – I’ve been teaching her to “weeeee” down hills with her feet off the pedals so she can get the feeling of adjusting the brake pressure rather than just jamming them on to stop quickly. Gradually getting there on a couple of the hills here.
She found some of the ride hard, made harder mostly by her desire to ride through the centre of EVERY puddle. Whilst it was funny getting sprayed (I was behind) with mud off her rear wheel, there were a couple of tumble moments when the bike just stopped as she hit the mud. One time she went over the bars, and both brakes got buried in the slime.
Not quite as far as last weekend’s ride of 4miles, but there were slopes, tunnels and ditches to navigate and avoid; she pulled an amazing emergency stop when she wobbled towards a ditch – I was super impressed her reaction was to jam on both brakes and she stopped herself from going over. We managed a little over 2 miles, and I think she was more exhausted than last week!
Managed to get the Garmin GPS watch working and was able to track our route here:
Here’s a little YouTube video taken as we were “weeeeee-ing” down the road to the car:
And a photo for good measure:
It was the last weekend in September that Bea “sussed” cycling on her first attempt without stabilisers; was interested if she could do it again, and hopefully with less crashing.
On Saturday we went back to the same car park and concentrated on her starting off without any assistance. Noticed that she was more confident – not overly so – and was able to “save” several crashes. Unfortunately she did eventually crash, and tears flowed once more. I convinced her that the “saves” were really important and showed her she was getting better and was learning really well!
We did upload a video from this Saturday session, but knowing it ended with a rather nasty crash have decided not to share it.
What was lovely about Saturday is I took my bike and we were riding around together – our first bike ride, even if it was a little broken up.
On Sunday the weather remained amazing (11th Oct) so found another car park on an industrial estate that had no traffic. Also it was paved rather than tarmac. Potentially offering a slightly more uneven surface. Found a little “sub” car park that had kerbs all round giving Bea a little boundary, which we eventually played with… more on that shortly.
We had been trying to have Bea push off by putting the leading pedal in the “go position”. On Saturday I had explained to her that a bicycle could ride itself if you could trick it into speeding along. I was wondering if she could paddle herself along, gather some speed and then put her feet on the pedals. Never worked on Saturday, but made a sideways comment about that on Sunday and she rather impressively took to it on her own with almost zero extra coaching. You can see a couple of videos below of her using this technique.
Sunday’s session was impressive for a few reasons:
The pavement riding was interesting because she asked to ride up on there and I explained she would have to be really accurate to avoid some metal bicycle racks on one side, a lamppost on the other and the kerb drop-off – that’s before we get to the bend and the slope back down into the car park.
She of course managed this easily. She then wanted to do this in reverse. I explained the only way to do that was ride really fast up the slope onto the pavement, carefully around the bend and then do a “trick” by riding off of the pavement. Dutifully and with no drama she did it. And did it again. And again. Had to catch her a couple of times as she turned into the corner too early – on the second go she asked why that was happening – I explained it was because she had ridden up the slope too slowly so was a little wobbly. She soon fixed that!
Anyway, summary is I cannot believe she is barely 3yrs and 8months old and has such confidence on a bicycle. She needs to improve her stopping ability, and of course accuracy, but these are things that will come. She is realising the importance of both on her own, so I think we will increase the complexity (she’s not really done hills – up or down – both bring challenges of their own), and we will eventually go out for a proper bike ride!
Here she is demonstrating her confidence:
![IMAG1000_1[1]](http://kevinclaire.com/beatrice/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMAG1000_11.jpg)
Here she nearly crashes into me (you can see the pavement and bicycle racks in the background):
Properly in control here of both the start and the stop:
Today our daughter is 3 years, 7 months and 2 weeks old.
Today is also the day our daughter learnt how to cycle on two wheels and two wheels only.
Bea has more than mastered the art of cycling with stabilisers.
She had reached the point that little out-riggers were getting in her way, to the point that she asked for them to be removed so she could go faster!!
With recent adventures on a little PW50 motorbike (with me on the back) Bea asked if she could learn to ride a motorbike.
I explained to her how she once could only crawl, had learned to walk, then learned to run, then learned to ride her balance bike (no pedals), then learned how to pedal on her little pink Ridgeback “Minny” with stabilisers.
She now wanted to ride her bicycle without the stabilisers, so I promised if she could learn to ride without, she could learn to ride the little motorbike.
We don’t have much hard standing, so knew we needed to go to the car park outside her nursery.
This place isn’t alien to us as both Charlie and Ollie went “sans-stabilisers” here too – although Charlie was more than a decade ago!
We explained to Bea how she would have to try really hard, and that she was going to fall off a lot, but as long as she kept getting back up again she would learn how to ride without those (dreaded!) stabilisers…!
So I took her to the car park, having already taken the stabilisers off at home; taking some tools in case we needed to put them back on (even temporarily for confidence building).
In event nothing was needed.
I learned between Charlie and Ollie’s training that holding onto the bike prevented the kid from feeling the bike wobble, which in turn meant they couldn’t learn to overcome or correct it.
So all I was doing for Bea was holding onto the scruff of her neck. If she fell I could save her from a heavy fall, but fall she still would.
Harsh? Not a bit of it. On her third go I realised that today was the day she was going to succeed – no doubt in my mind.
Was I being pushy? Absolutely not! She wanted this and was apparently very ready (probably a number of weeks ago too).
You can see three videos below – the first is THE first time I let go of her. At 45seconds into the clip she asked if she could stop, so I let go of her; she didn’t even register.
The second video has a wobble in it that she recovers really nicely from, and is so full of beans I asked her a question about her riding – she is so enthusiastic it’s gorgeous.
The third video is all her. I am barely touching her at the start, and stand stationary so am forced to let go the moment she has momentum. You see her go round and round and round and then brake and come to a stop without any tumble or drama. Properly impressive.
That’s all very well – I’ve shared the very best bits – what this hides are the tumbles, pain and tears.
One big tumble was as a result of her trying to look behind to see if I was still holding onto her (I wasn’t) – the act caused a whole body swerve and a heavy fall.
She had a number of other crashes – some I could catch and some I wasn’t quite close enough to.
One almost-crash occurred as she rode towards the village hall; amazingly she realised her error and calmly pulled the brakes and stopped. I was going so fast to catch her, I almost trampled her – such was the surprise that she controlled the bike effortlessly to a standstill.
Her helmet peak took a number of whacks, so did both knees and both palms. One crash saw her chin get a whack.
I sat cuddling a crying child almost as much as I jogged after a speeding giggling child!
We were in excess of two hours doing lap upon lap.
When we finally got back home, Bea took her stabilisers into Mummy and stated quite clearly that they were for the bin as she no longer needed them!!!
Trotting round town Mummy decided a cake stop was required. Found a nice spot to sit and enjoy.
Daddy finished work early and was keen for a beer in the Sun.
Mummy wanted to walk Arek, so while we waited in the pub for Mummy to come drink her “bubbles” (white wine spritzer), Daddy and Bea sat and had “Daddy-juice” (Tanglefoot beer) and two scoops of vanilla ice cream.
Once satiated we set about attacking the space hopper.
Mummy eventually turned up and we sat in the fading sun; a late night for Bea but very worthwhile. We will do this again!
Daddy wanted gun shop, girls wanted moochin’ so on the run back home we stopped and took lunch in a wonderful little cafe in Petworth where Bea made lots of friends including a lady who sat quietly at the back and when she left she came and complimented Bea on her gorgeous looks and brilliant manners.
Once we had put some pound coins in the tips jar we were set to wander the shops.
Outside a little florist we have used before we found a little metal chair. Bea found it a little too metaly so borrowed Mummy’s bottom for a cushion!
Here we see the gorgeous girls intertwined with legs, bags and of course bunny:
