An Example For Us All

Last night Joey saw the neighbor kid riding his bike and he said to me, "I want to ride without my training wheels." We had tried this a couple times before, briefly, with me holding onto the seat, and I knew he had a Long way to go. But he said "I can do it, Mom," and I was tired, so I said, "fine, Joey, go do it." So he went and got his new blue bike and tried and tried and tried. And fell and fell and fell. But he never said, "this is too hard," or "I can't do it, Mom!" or "I'm never going to be able to do this." He was just sure that next time he would do it. He wouldn't even let me hardly help him much. I have never seen such a display of pure determination with absolutely no discouragement or even frustration. But it got dark before he got riding, and I told him maybe Dad could work with him on it tomorrow.

And Dad did. Twenty minutes later, I went out to see how it was going and there was Joey, riding across the cult de sac by himself. Jared said he held onto him a couple times around, then he just had to have the faith to let go. And off Joey went! He still needed a push to get going and he still crash landed every time, but he was balancing and riding.

Here is a picture of Dad and proud Joey with his bike on this Milestone Day. For a video of one of his early rides, see his blog.


This evening I went out and Joey was out there practicing. The neighbor kid, who is nearly eight and rides BMX, was encouraging him. He can start and stop himself now, sometimes. Give him a couple more days and he'll be riding smoothly, I'm sure.

What a wonderful example of hard work and positive attitude. Thanks, Joey!