Score one more for Utah

I have a confession. Until yesterday, my eight-year-old son could not ride a bicycle.

This is what learning to ride a bike was like for Aidan

Aidan not knowing how to ride a bike felt like a major lapse in my parenting. When Aidan was a toddler, I bought him a big wheel. I got him a big-kid bike for his third birthday. And last year when Aidan was seven, Robert and I bought him a tricked out Nerf bike complete with a six-round Nerf shooter that strapped to the front. But for some reason, riding a bicycle has been Aidan's achilles heel. He clung to his training wheels until he was six and when I told him it was time to ditch the training wheels, he developed a belief that scooters were infinitely cooler than bikes. During our stint in UCLA Family Housing, Robert and I tried a few times to teach him how to ride a bike to no avail. At the lowest point, Aidan ran away from us screaming that he did not want to ride a bike and hid in the bushes. 

This is how I roll

Stop posing and ride the darn thing!

Yesterday, I told Aidan that we were going to try riding a bike again. I told him that he is eight for heavens sake and all his friends will be riding bikes this summer. After Robert pumped up the tires and I cleaned off the grime, Aidan jumped on the bike and rode away. It was like he had been pretending that he couldn't ride a bike the whole time. The first two times down the driveway were a little shaky and then his friends showed up on their bikes. Abracadabra, Aidan could ride a bicycle. He rode all day at Sugar House park and around our neighborhood. He followed his friend Mimi down a fast hill. Hours later, when I was driving home from Trader Joe's, I passed Aidan and his friend Julian riding their bikes down the street like he had been doing it for years.

Aidan and Silas -- the new riders -- looking proudly at their bikes 

Rather than calling this a win for me or a win for Aidan, I'm going to call this another win for Utah. Living in apartments in big cities is not conducive to bike riding or tree climbing or any of that good stuff. Is it possible? Sure. Is it a natural extension of life? No. In Sugar House, not riding a bike is not an option.

Daredevil Aidan his first day riding a bike

The bike riding fiasco was also a reminder to me that kids learn things in their own time and to stop freaking out if Aidan needs a longer runway than other kids at certain things. Sometimes he'll be on the right side of the bell curve, sometimes the left. For goodness sake, the kid started reading at three, long before most of his friends. So what if it took him eight years to learn how to ride a bike? Some things are worth the wait.