A New Bike for Caleb

Last year Caleb had a three wheel bike and by the end of the summer he really wanted a bike like Leah’s. The reason that we hadn’t given in to his begging is because he couldn’t figure out how to pedal. We told him that once he figured out how to pedal that we would get him a bigger bike. This really wasn’t enough motivation to him.
This spring he was starting to pedal a little bit better and we started to put him on Leah’s bike just to see if he could do it. He couldn’t really pedal Leah’s bike yet, but he was at least able to pedal the three wheel bike some. It was really a struggle for him mostly because I think he just wanted us to push him.

A few weeks ago we finally gave in and bought him a bigger bike. He was so excited! However, he still couldn’t pedal. We don’t have a lot of smooth bike riding room at our house so I had been leaving the van out of the garage so that he had a little more room. After a few days with the bike, Caleb was finally starting to get a little better after Rod started working with him. He was still very slow and unsure and was getting stuck a lot. Recently, we went to Travis and Rachial’s house and we let the kids take their bikes. Their house has a great place to ride bikes since they live on a cul-de-sac. Caleb was very excited to ride with Hunter. It was a amazing that after just a short time there, he started getting really good. Wow, do kids pick up things fast. It was like something really clicked.

Now Caleb pretty much wants to ride his bike everyday. My van is rarely in the garage during the day. On the weekends when there aren’t any trucks out, I will take the kids over to the Copley’s trucking business drive that runs right on the other side of our house. It gives them a long road to ride up and down on. We are still working with Caleb on using his brakes, but other than that, he’s got it down pat.

By the way, he’s a typical boy and has decided that his bike is really a motorcycle. If we call it a bike when he’s in this mindset, he pretty much gets mad and reminds us that it’s his motorcycle. I am not ready for real motorcycles just yet!