>Riding along

>It’s amazing how many things we let our children do, even though it terrifies us.  For example, we encourage them to learn to walk, even though they are a lot closer to the ground when crawling and in far less danger of hitting their heads on every sharp corner we never saw when we were babyproofing.

Not only do we allow these moves toward independence, we celebrate them.  “Yay, first steps!  Good job, you walked up the stairs without holding my hands!”  And we try to crowd out that he’s not a baby anymore feeling  or the what have we gotten ourselves into? feeling with one of pride.

That’s how it felt when I was watching this moment happen:

He was listening so carefully as his daddy was teaching him about pedaling, trying to figure out exactly what this contraption was supposed to do.

He looks like such a big boy now, and being able to ride a tricycle means all sorts of other dangerous possibilities.  Yes, I need to go buy a helmet, but even with that I am envisioning the first of many skinned knees and elbows this summer.  But that’s life, and we want them to live it, no matter how much we wish we could keep them safely in the stroller forever.

And just look at how proud he is once he gets the idea (not of pedaling yet, but of steering, which is exciting, too)!

It’s hard not to catch that enthusiasm.