Riding his bike

my oldest son, Lennon has been nagging me to teach him how to ride his big boys bike. Since we restored my old one, the one I learned how to ride a bike on, he has been trying to sit on it and couldn’t reach the floor yet. We tried again three weeks ago and he could reach the floor. He was over the moon and we went straight ahead with balancing and I showed him to put the pedals just ride to gain momentum and so on.

It didn’t take long, he was very persistent and patient, and he told me to stop helping him, not to hold him and to let go. When did kids become so clever?

wIt literally felt like he was asking me to let go and let him gain more independence, to loosen the string just a little more for him to grow up and become his own self. I let go and felt so proud but also so sad. Proud of my sunshine boy that has now entered the stage of riding a bike, so proud that he went with it, wasn’t scared of it, didn’t need training wheels and learned riding his bike within a week, from first time sitting properly on it to being able to jump on and off by himself and steer his way past pedestrians and other obstacles. And very sad because he is growing up so fast, pushing for independence and learning so fast that I sometimes feel I can’t keep up. He has made a big jump this summer, and the summer isn’t even over yet…

Being a parent must be the only job in the world where being proud, love and sadness lay so close together you experience them all at once.

Mama Madola