Bird Watching Bike Trip

Today was the annual 3rd grade "bird watching bike trip". Every year, the third graders ride their bikes to a house near the school to go bird watching. I was apprehensive about this day. Matthew doesn't have a bike. And even if he did have one, he doesn't know how to ride a bike. He can clear all the levels in Guitar Hero, but he can't ride a bike.

A few parents volunteered to drive the kids who either couldn't or didn't want to ride their bikes, so at least Matthew still got to go on the trip. He said that there were three other kids who didn't ride bikes, so at least he wasn't alone. It didn't really seem to bother him. It bothers me, though.

So - why doesn't Matthew have a bike? For his 5th birthday, we took him to Toys R Us to pick out any bike he wanted. He didn't want one. He got a toy helicopter instead. A few weeks later, he wanted a bike, so off we went to buy him one. He was excited to try it out. He gave it a good try, but he was a little freaked out by how "unsteady" the bike was. Even though he had training wheels on, and he couldn't really tip over, he was still apprehensive. And I'll admit - so
was I. Once on a trip around the neighborhood, he ran over a pothole, and got "stuck". The training wheels were on either side of the pothole. He was pedaling and pedaling, but going nowhere. The first time it happened, he was freaked out. The second time it happened, he thought it was fun.

When he finally was confident enough to ride the bike (with the training wheels), he was looking all around as he was riding down the street. He was looking everywhere EXCEPT in front of him. He seemed so distracted that I was so worried that he was going to get hit by a car, fall off the bike... etc... so we didn't really push him to take off the training wheels.

A few years ago, we did try a few times to get him to ride the bike without training wheels. We even enlisted the help of our neighbor, who has successfully taught his three boys to ride a bike. No luck. Now the bike is too small for him, and it has been handed down to Reed. He hasn't asked for a new bike.

A small part of me is glad that Matthew can't ride a bike - that's one less chance for him to get hurt. But I know that I can't protect him forever. I know that he will fall and skin his knee or his elbow, and he will be just fine. He'll have his heart broken. He'll face other disappointments. But he'll get back up again. He'll be fine.