When our children were first learning to ride bikes, we bought each of them a child bicycle that fit both their size and their personality. Our youngest is quite a handful and without realizing it, we had bought a kid bicycle with ”Troublemaker” written across the pads on the bars. Although I wouldn’t call this child a troublemaker, it just seemed quite funny to us that we wouldn’t notice what we had purchased until much later.
This bike has been on several family outings as well as seen its share of jumps and speed races. From as early as we can remember this particular child, being the youngest, has a very competitive streak and has tagged along with the older siblings in everything. He even skipped a toddler bicycle stage and jumped straight to the aforementioned child bicycle. It didn’t matter that even with the seat lowered and the pedals were hard to reach, this child was going to master riding that bike and rode it standing up for the first few months.
As a little dare devil, the helmets and pads were a must for this kid. If the older siblings jumped a ditch, by golly, this child would too. If the sibling closest in age went to the skate and bike park, it was never without the younger one tagging along to try and “one-up” every time.
We must admit that this has not been all bad. Because of the continual influence of more patient and laid back personalities of the older children, the youngest has had some great influence. We constantly remind this child to remember from whence his ability to achieve great accomplishments comes from.
Our most recent adventure came on a camping trip where we almost chose to leave the bicycles behind. We’re so glad we didn’t. Since Mom isn’t the greatest of bicycle enthusiasts, who do you think decided that they were the one to teach her how to ride a trail? How sweet and extremely comical it was to see our youngest take on the roll of teacher as Mom patiently played along with the role reversal. We wouldn’t have traded this incredible moment for anything.
As we move on to adolescence and we have to leave this child bicycle behind for something bigger and better, we will miss this stage and the bicycle that has brought us many hours of entertainment as we’ve watched it and its rider streak down the empty side-walk and fly over both hand-made and pre- molded jumps in an effort to reign victorious over yet another challenge.