Sydney's Passion for Cows

Monday I took Sydney to her happy place, the sale barn in Overbrook. We weren’t there to buy or sell. She just loves to be close to the cows and watch them walk across the auction block. She oohs and aahs over every cow that walks in front of us. She comments and exclaims over each one. She keeps looking at me to make sure I am seeing what she is seeing. She wants me to agree with her. They are beautiful. She has favorite breeds and colors but she believes they are all beautiful. I do not know exactly why my little girl finds cattle so enchanting but she is crazy for them. She has been for many years now. She loves all animals but cows are her passion.

The cattle sale does not start until 11:00 usually and Sydney is up at the crack of dawn so she was very anxious to get going Monday. I suggested she pretend she was an auctioneer and try to auction off her plastic toy cows. I played with her for a while and then moved into the kitchen to do some cleaning. I could hear her though. Her toy farmer was bidding on cattle. She asked him if he’d like to buy one of her bulls for $300.00 and the farmer said that was too much. She asked him if he’d buy it for $2000.00 and the farmer said, “Yes, that is much better.” Numbers are just not her thing. Ha.

 

Grandpa's herd

We’ve always had cattle close enough to the house that she can catch sight of them most days. My dad, her grandpa, usually has about thirty or so head, mostly Black Angus or mixed breed cattle. Almost every day grandpa goes into the pasture to check on his cows, usually stopping by to pick Sydney up so she can go along. It is the highlight of Sydney’s day. She will forgo swimming, playing with friends, eating, games, movies, or shopping, all activities she enjoys, if she can go with grandpa for the ride through the pasture. I am so glad my dad takes her. It is a special memory she will always have, long after he is gone. It was my dad that introduced Sydney to cows and to the sale barn experience.

Sydney relates well to all of our animals. As I mentioned in a recent post, they do not get tired of her constant chatter or her pestering as people do. I often think of the famous Temple Grandin and how well she relates to cattle when I see Sydney interacting with the cows, dog, and horse. Although Sydney does not have autism as Temple Grandin does, they do have similarities. Perhaps Sydney will work with animals one day if her interests do not change as she ages.

Sydney with Obadiah

Sydney has two cows of her own right now. They have unique names: Obadiah and Habakkuk. When these calves came into our lives, Sydney was learning the books of the Old Testament so she chose to name the calves after prophets. She has shortened the names over time to Obah or Obie and Backa. Obie is a steer (male but not a bull, for you city folk). We bought him from a nearby dairy farmer. Backa, a heifer (female calf, for you urbanites), came from the cattle auction. Obie is an Ayrshire, a dairy breed and Backa is a Hereford. Obie will need to be sold soon. This breaks my heart for Sydney. Obie and Sydney are in love. Backa likes Sydney just fine, especially if she has grain in her hand. But Obie and Sydney have a special bond. Backa is still penned close to the house, too young to be put in with the bull because she is much too young to breed. Obie was turned out into the big pasture at the beginning of the summer. When Sydney sees Obie up close to the house or when grandpa takes her out into the pasture, Obie lets Sydney hug and kiss him, pet him and pat him. If he is lying down, she climbs on him or lays on him. He tolerates it all. He is big enough now that I worry a little bit about how strong he is and how little Sydney is but he sure would not hurt her on purpose. Can I pet Obie? No. Can my dad pet Obie? No. If we get close he walks or trots right away. Sydney has spent so many hours with that calf from the day we brought him home that he has bonded with her. Sydney knows that Obie will have to be sold one of these days and she knows what happens to steers. Some days she seems okay with it and some days tears well up if it is mentioned. I always remind her that she can get another calf and occasionally that perks her back up. It is tough sometimes, being a farm girl. We see a lot of animals come and go.

A few days ago we got quite a laugh when Sydney became confused about something. Habakkuk is a Hereford. That is the breed. She is also a heifer. That is her gender. Sydney knows this. But, she became confused a few days ago about how we could call Backa both things. She asked Shawn if Backa was a mixed breed, half Herford, half heifer.

Sydney pours over books about cows. It is amazing the number of books I have been able to find her about cattle and the different breeds there are. She memorizes the cattle breeds but like many of the things she learns and knows reliably for a while, she loses the information and has to relearn it. This is due to the brain damage from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Some breeds she does not forget often though. Those are her favorites. She LOVES longhorn cattle and there is a pasture of those close by that I sometimes take her to see. I can park the van on the gravel road next to the fence and sit there for a very long time before she is ready to go. A Charolais (pronounced Shar Lay) is a breed of white cattle that Sydney really likes. A Brahma is another favorite of hers. It has a very unique look to it. We have seen a very few of those come through the sale barn but we’ve never seen any out in pastures nearby. She likes Herefords, Black Angus, and Holstein cattle a lot. Many of the other breeds she can name without help some days, while other days the names are totally lost for her. Thank you birth mother with a drinking problem (sarcasm intended).

Sydney knows every pasture with cattle in it and what breed or color of cattle the pastures contain between home and all our regular destinations. If a farmer moves a herd of cows or sells some, it does not go unnoticed by my little girl. On our way somewhere this past week she exclaimed, “Hey, there are usually lots of black cows in that pasture. I wonder where they are?” Sure enough, I did not notice until she pointed it out but the cows were missing. Sometimes it is as detailed as, “There is usually one white faced cow in with all those Black Angus. I don’t see it today.” Sometimes she worries about where the cows went, hoping the farmer did not have to sell them. When I go somewhere without Sydney I sometimes find myself listening for her to exclaim, “Aren’t those cows so cute?” from the backseat.

Sydney's herd

Sydney’s preferred toys are not Barbie dolls, but plastic cows and tractors. She has a couple of plastic barns and a livestock trailer. She asked for a grain truck for her birthday. THAT was hard to find. Sydney builds elaborate fences out of Lincoln logs and she “farms” all over the living room. She does play with other things like baby dolls but often cows are incorporated into that as well. She scans Netflix, looking for shows about animals, especially about livestock. This week Sydney thought she’d like to watch a movie with her oldest sister. Her sister said, “How about a love story?” Sydney said, “Ohhhhh yeah, one with cows in it.” I gave up long ago trying to interest Sydney in Disney princesses and tea parties. I decorated her room in what she loves. She has photos and posters of cattle on her walls. Her bedspread is covered in cows and her curtains are barnyard animals. She is very proud of it. She may have started out in Pskov, Russia but she’s a Kansas farm girl now!

Like what you read?  Want to read more?   Sydney, from the back seat of the van

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Tate's Love Affair With Movies

Tate knows movies. He loves movies. It’s his “thing.” He knows more actors’ names and movie facts than I do, well except for the old classics and musicals. Those oldies are of no value to him, but I love those. So, he is somewhat selective when it comes to his movies. We have tried to get him interested in some of the older Disney movies. We’d love to share some of our favorites and broaden his horizons. He is not usually very receptive. He felt like he was being punished when we asked him to sit through Swiss Family Robinson and Davy Crockett with the family. We asked him to watch Jimmy Stewart in Harvey recently, one of Shawn’s favorite movies. Tate was miserable. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Happiest Millionaire were hits with him though. Television series are the same. He loves the old Scooby Doo series but won’t even watch the first episode of Dark Wing Duck, no matter how many times his older brothers have told him they loved it when they were younger. I got it for him for Xmas a couple of years ago and it is still sealed.

If Tate likes a series of television shows or movies, he will not rest until he owns them all. (If there is one more movie about Shrek or the Ice Age characters, I think I will jump off a cliff. HA) All of his movies must be kept in his room and grouped together for him to feel at peace with the world. He has a plastic set of drawers and a bookshelf that are full but he knows each and every movie very well. Loaning one out, even to a family member is hard for him but he can do it. But, heaven forbid a movie becomes separated from its box or lost. THAT is a crisis, and there will be a melt down. I am not talking about a temper tantrum, or anything that resembles anger. It is anxiety. Lots of anxiety. I have been known on several occasions to go and purchase a duplicate, even knowing that the lost movie will eventually turn up. His worry, pacing, the wringing of hands, the lost sleep, and the constant talk about the missing movie, makes for some very long days. I especially hate to put his teachers through the experience if it is a school day. Teachers have let me know there is not much learning going on unless Tate is anxiety free. It’s almost always worth the $15 or $20 it takes to ease his pain. 

It gets even more ridiculous: When we see a movie that gives birth to a sequel, then Tate wants to see the sequel at the same theater we saw the original movie in. We frequent more than one theater, for crying out loud! I don’t know how he remembers where exactly we saw the last movie or why it is even important to him, but these kinds of things matter so much to him. Of course we cannot always comply with his wishes and he does not usually meltdown when his demands are not met about the theater location but he does become somewhat anxious. Using a scale of one to ten, seeing a movie in a theater he does not prefer is a three or four on the anxiety meter, while a lost movie is a nine or ten. A four is manageable but a nine is not. There will be nothing getting done around here if a nine rears its ugly head. No amount of talking or reasoning will do the trick. And time will not heal the wound either. Tate does not soon forget something that is bothering him. A lost or broken item for those of us without autism may be no big deal, but for Tate it is very painful. It doesn’t only apply to movies but because movies mean so much to him, and those DVD’s are somewhat fragile, it has been a problem quite often. Last week Tate's beloved watch stopped. Right. Before. School. I had few options. I left him at school and he was a wreck. He was to go straight from school to bike camp. I knew I could make it to Walmart and back before bike camp began. I did NOT want the progress he was making in bike camp to stall! When I showed up with a working watch at the beginning of bike camp it was like I relieved physical pain for Tate (and his teacher). The teacher he had been with for the ninety minutes before bike camp began told me he had not been able to focus on schoolwork and they had heard about the broken watch over and over. He cannot help it. He really cannot. I know that those of you who live without autism in your household might consider me an enabler or you might be thinking I am spoiling him. I did just admit to being a mother who runs to Walmart for a new watch or movie instead of using natural consequences to teach a lesson. However, I have tried it the “right way.” Remember, I have five children without disabilities so I know how things SHOULD work. You can take almost everything you learn from raising neurotypical kids and throw it out the window when you are handed a child with autism. The same rules do not apply. Tate does not learn much from natural consequences, nor does he have the ability to “let it go” (no Disney Frozen pun intended) when something is bothering him. 

Back to the topic of this blog post: Movies. If you asked Tate to name the worst movie ever made, I’m pretty sure he would say, “Annie.” He despises the movie Annie. I do not know why, but he is adamant. He is not a fan. We used to have two versions of the movie on VHS and he probably saw both of them when he was really young. He claims that he hates it because I used to make him watch it over and over. He makes it sound like I tied him in a chair and played it for days. HA. I’m pretty sure that never happened. If I want to tease Tate, I just break out in song, “The sun’ll come out tomorrow.” The last couple of times we have been to a movie theater, we have seen previews for the latest version of Annie. I leaned over and asked Tate if he wanted to see it. He stuttered out, “No, no, no, no, ummmm Mom, you know I don’t like Annie.” Ironically, my brother is playing the role of Daddy Warbucks in the play Annie in his community theater this month. I cannot wait to see it! I asked Tate if he wanted me to get him a ticket. He was sure he was NOT interested. He does like to go to plays though. His oldest sister took him to see The Wizard of Oz last week at an outdoor theater. He loved it. The Wizard of Oz happens to be one of his favorite movies right now. He goes through phases and if he choses a favorite then he watches it over and over. He has several versions and sequels of The Wizard of Oz. Even the Muppets have a version of the movie. The Muppets are another all-time favorite for him. He has a lot of Muppet toys and occasionally lines them all up so they can watch a movie with him.

Tate’s love affair with movies began when he was really young. One of the first television series I remember him obsessing over was Curious George. One of the first movies I remember him being crazy in love with was Mary Poppins. He must have watched it every day for two months. Tate lost most of his language around age twenty-four to thirty months. When he started talking again it was mostly just to echo us or movies or books we had read him. He did not have to see a movie more than once or twice to have much of the dialogue memorized. He would sometimes say things that fit into conversation appropriately and I’d think, “He’s talking to us!” But then one of us would recognize the sentence as a line from a movie he had been watching. At a very young age, he learned to read some words because he memorized them from movie titles. When Tate was three years old, we saw a movie poster that said, “from the makers of Finding Nemo” and Tate read it to me. I remember being excited and thinking, “He’s so smart!” but then, “I’d trade the things like that for some social skills.”

Tate knows the release dates of movies he is interested in seeing or owning far in advance. Last Friday we saw How to Train Your Dragon 2 and he gives it a two thumbs up. Today is the day The Lego Movie will be out on DVD. This is all he can think about and all he has wanted to talk about for days. He keeps telling me he will bike to Walmart to get the movie and I keep telling him that we will be driving in the van. Next up? July 18, Planes: Fire and Rescue. I wonder which theater we saw the original Planes movie at? Tate will remember!

On Two Wheels (Part Two)

If you haven’t read my last blog post, you’ll want to scroll down and catch up, or just click here: http://quirks-and-chaos.blogspot.com/2014/06/on-two-wheels-part-one.html  

This week was bike camp. I have only recently learned about this program and was very excited to find it. If you have a special needs kid in your life who cannot yet ride a bike, I encourage you to find a bike camp. 

The program was hosted by a couple of great teachers from our local school district through an organization called I Can Shine. You can find them at www.icanshine.org if you are interested. They have many bike camps going on simultaneously throughout the summer. If there is not one nearby, ask them how to host a program in your town. There is a reason they have an eighty percent success rate. This program was fantastic.

An amazing group of people volunteered this week. The volunteers during Tate’s session were college students majoring in Occupational Therapy. The sessions were an hour and fifteen minutes and each camper received individual attention from two or three volunteers. Tate’s session was very well run. The volunteers were as valuable as the modified bikes provided. I think I heard there were 37 campers total, eight in Tate’s session. The helpers outnumbered the riders. 

Day one, the campers were on bikes that had a large roller for a back wheel. There was almost no way a kid could tip a bike like that. The bike experts from I Can Shine adjusted the bikes to fit individual riders. They rode on a smooth gymnasium floor in the air conditioning. The kids in Tate’s session became very confident and by the end of class were pedaling like champs. I was pleasantly surprised by Tate’s speed at the end of class. It was definitely fast enough to keep a bike balanced, but I was still skeptical that he would be able to balance without the security of the roller.

Day two was called Tandem Tuesday. They used the roller bikes for a while at the beginning of the hour and then the campers all got turns on a two-seater bike with an I Can Shine staff member behind them. Tate told me the guy who rode with him was a scientist. I couldn’t figure that out but later I heard that he is a science major and he must have told Tate. HA. The “scientist” wore a cape like a super hero and I’m sure the campers got quite a kick out of that. I know I did.

Day three was called Launch Day. They went outside to the school parking lot and used a bike with a long handle on the back. An adult could hold onto the handle if the camper needed help balancing. The volunteers ran alongside the bikes, steadying the riders as needed for as long as it took. But here’s the amazing part: It didn’t take long until the campers were riding with no help. Tate was amazing. I never would have believed it but I saw it with my own eyes. Tate was on two wheels, unassisted, making turns and looking like he’d been riding for years. This was only day three. Most of the other campers were also riding. Tate fell once and skinned his knee. No big deal. He was back up and riding in a few minutes. I cried happy tears. I was so proud. On the way home I asked Tate if he was glad I had insisted he go to bike camp even though he did not want to go. He said, “Yes.”

Day four was more of the same. Tate rode and rode and rode. No skinned knees this day. He needed someone to steady the bike when he took off each time but once he was pedaling, he was the master. Watching him struggle to take off brought back a long forgotten memory for me. I remember being able to ride long before I could just jump on and go. I used to pull my bike up to the bottom step of our sidewalk where the driveway sloped, make sure the pedals were positioned just right, and hope that I could get a good start before I crashed. Wow, that was a long time ago.

As we left bike camp on Thursday, Tate told a volunteer. “I can ride a bike now so I’m going to bike across America.” The day before bike camp he told two friends that he was going to learn how to ride a bike and bike across the country like a hippie. Then there was that trip to the mall that I mentioned in my last post (Part One). We are going to have to convince Tate that there are a lot of rules and responsibilities that go along with owning a bike.

He calls his bike "a rocket on wheels."

Day Five (Graduation Day) was today. Tate was transitioned to his own bike. If you read part one of this story then you may understand how great that was for Tate. He had fallen in love with that bike. He has been anxious to get on it and ride. On this day of camp, lots of time was spent on the take off. He struggled with it but at the end of the session he had three good starts in a row. As Tate was wheeling that bike back into the gymnasium for a small graduation ceremony I noticed how comfortable he was with the bike. Was it only one week ago that he so awkwardly wheeled it out to the van from the back of Walmart? During the ceremony I noticed (once again) that Tate towered over the other children and even the adults who were teaching him. He was the tallest one present. Being so tall makes his handicap even harder for everyone. Tate looks older than he is. He acts younger than he is. His older siblings take him places and it appears they are treating an adult as if he is seven years old. But there again, THAT is a whole ‘nother blog post.

Today, I overhead Tate casually mention to one of the volunteers that The Lego Movie is coming out next Tuesday so he would bike to Walmart on Tuesday to pick it up. This afternoon I had a talk with Tate about his limitations and rules concerning the bike. He seems to understand that riding on the roads is not going to happen for a while. Although Tate is unable to determine what is dangerous and what is not, he usually does adhere to the rules and boundaries he is given. We do have some silver linings in our world.  Ha

I know I’ve said it before in other blog posts, but if you do not have a child with special needs (or maybe teach children with special needs) then you probably will not be able to grasp the gravity of Tate’s achievement. I can hear people thinking, “So, he can ride a bike now. Big deal. Who cannot ride a bike by the time they are 12?” People with autism battle so many sensory issues and have such a hard time with motor skills and concentration that things like this do not come easy. Tate can barely hop on one foot or stand on one foot without falling. Balancing is hard for him. I cannot say it loud enough: “This is a BIG deal.”

I saw two quotes this week that really hit home for me. “My disability does not exceed my abilities” was in my Facebook feed. I have thought a lot about that. I limit Tate all the time because of his autism. Of all the people in this world, I should be the one who does not see the word “autism” written across his forehead. He is more than autism, and autism does not have to define everything about him. This next one is a Chinese proverb: “The person who says it can't be done, should not interrupt the person who is doing it.” When that doctor told me to find a bike camp for Tate, I was so skeptical.  There was really someone who could teach Tate to ride a bike? In one week? Oh, give me a break! After all, I had tried and failed. I need to stop doubting and interrupting the people in Tate’s world who believe in the “impossible”, because the things I believe are impossible sometimes are very doable. Sure, I found a camp, signed him up, paid the fee, talked it up to Tate, bought him a bike, forced him to go and participate. But I did not BELIEVE he would succeed. I just faked it. I’ve done that a lot. I provide Tate with the opportunities to achieve great things often and cheer him on while negative thoughts dance around in my head. Perhaps if I remember Tate’s rendition of Proverbs 3:5: “Trust in Jesus and lean forward” (see link below) I will be able to replace those negative thoughts with positive ones. 

See past blog post: http://quirks-and-chaos.blogspot.com/2013/04/trust-in-jesus-and-lean-forward-tate.html

On Two Wheels (Part One)

How many of your childhood memories revolve around a bicycle? I learned to ride on a small red bike, my dad or an older brother running beside me and helping me ‘til I learned to balance all by myself. I remember getting my first new bike with a banana seat for my ninth birthday. I think I rode most of the tread off the tires of that bike. I remember the thrill of getting permission to ride all the way around the block by myself when I was old enough, and then later riding to the store with a friend on occasion. There were bike wrecks and bloodied elbows and knees. There were flat tires. Did anyone else out there ever get their pant leg caught in their bike chain? Eventually I upgraded to a ten-speed, but that magenta-colored bike with the banana seat will always be the bike I remember most.

My older kids learned to ride around age five, give or take a year, usually on a hand-me-down bike. Then we would make a trip to the store to buy them a bike of their own. One of my younger kids had no interest in learning to ride. Each summer I tried to coax him onto a bike and each summer he said, “no.” Finally, about age ten, the first day of his summer vacation, I announced that there would be no video games played until he could ride a bike. He learned in a matter of minutes and rode a lot that summer. He continues to ride often. Our youngest, Sydney, learned to ride at a fairly young age, handicap and all. I found a bike at a yard sale that was like the one I loved so much as a kid, all the way down to the banana seat. She rides it a lot but recently has decided she needs to have one with hand brakes. I see a new bike in her near future.

Tate, like many people with autism, has trouble with motor skills. He cannot jump gracefully or run quickly. He walks with an awkward gait, often on his toes. He was able to ride a tricycle when he was a preschooler and we tried a few times to get him on a bicycle with no success. Recently, a developmental pediatrician we saw asked me if Tate liked to ride a bike. I told her that he was unable and she asked me why. I was surprised that she was even asking. She sees kids with autism all the time. I had to ask myself: Was I just rationalizing and making excuses or were there valid reasons Tate could not ride a bike? We had not tried to get Tate on a bicycle in years. Although Tate does have to work much harder than his neurotypical peers to master new skills, he sometimes surprises me. Just saying that it surprises me when Tate succeeds at difficult tasks makes me somewhat sad and embarrassed. Why should I NOT expect Tate to do well? Why am I such a cynic? I’ve never been that parent who expects great things from her children. I expect average things from my children and less than average things from my children with disabilities. Do not misunderstand me. I am extremely proud of my children. ALL of my children. And I believe my children ARE doing great things. But, I have always been somewhat of a pessimist, my whole life. I suppose if I do not expect great things in life then I cannot be disappointed if great things do not ensue. Then, when great things DO happen, I can be pleasantly surprised. What would it have been like had I lived the last 51 years expecting great things? Would my family be doing even greater things than they are now? I surely hope my pessimistic attitude has not held any of them back.

The day I told Tate’s doctor he could not ride a bike she urged me to find a “bike camp” and enroll him. I had never heard of bike camp. She gave me the name and number of a man to contact in Kansas City who would be able to tell me about it. I called and emailed a few times but never got him to return my calls. Then, amazingly enough, a bike camp fell into our laps in our very own small town. This bike camp is a fantastic opportunity for Tate. I do not believe I would be exaggerating to say, learning to ride a bike could be life-changing for a kid with a disability. The camp boasts of an eighty percent success rate. It is scheduled for this week. 

I have spent a couple of months trying to get Tate excited about learning to ride a bike. He has NOT jumped on board. He has told his peers things like, “My mom THINKS I am going to bike camp this summer but I am not.” He has tried to convince me he was too busy and he has made many excuses. I’ve heard, “I’m not into riding bikes” from him often. He has been very anxious. He has nervously paced and argued for the past two weeks about bike camp, bringing it up often. So, hoping to win him over, I took Tate to Walmart one day last week and showed him the bike I wanted to buy for him. The bike recommended by the bike “experts” is called a cruiser. It has coaster brakes, a wide seat, high handlebars, and wide pedals. Remarkably, it was love at first sight for Tate. He could not own it soon enough. We went back this past Friday morning and purchased the bike. I did not think Tate had the coordination it would take to even wheel the bike to the front of the store so I offered to do it, but he insisted. I had to show him more than once how to hold the handlebars and lean over the bike to steer it as he walked beside it. He probably looked pretty strange pushing that bike through the store. I had a flashback to a few of my six year olds pushing much smaller bikes through Walmart when we were buying their first bikes. This time I was there with my 12 year old who is 6’2” tall. It took a very long time but we made it to the register and out the door with that bike. He even helped me lift it into the van.

The cruiser

So, what does a child with autism do when he becomes the proud owner of a bike that he cannot yet ride? He sits by it for hours. He lovingly wipes it off with a rag once in a while. He takes pictures of it. He talks about it to anyone who will listen. He even fantasizes out loud about riding his bike to the mall. If you have been reading my blog posts long, you will remember Tate has had many unusual attachments to things over the years. There was a cloth diaper fetish when he was little. Then there were ribbons and cords. The vacuum was his major love interest for a long while. There was a stuffed duck he named Boris, a Woody doll, spiral notebooks, a red sweater, his i-pad, his watch, his hat, and his KU Jayhawk hoodie (which we recently had to seize due to the heat…but that is a whole ‘nother blog post.) Never has Tate become obsessed with something this large or something that he cannot keep in the house. 

Despite the love of the new bike, Tate is still insisting he should not go to bike camp tomorrow. He was almost desperate in his attempts to convince me today. We were with friends this evening and he was still attempting to persuade me to let him skip camp. Exasperated, and forgetting that I cannot reason with Tate (it's the autism) or EVER win an argument, I said something like, “Unless you can show me you can ride a bike this evening, you are going to bike camp tomorrow.” He brightened right up, ran over to my friend and told her that his mom had changed her mind and he did not have to go to bike camp. All he had to do was ride two inches on his own. Tate does not understand numbers and has no concept of measurement so I did not let that part worry me. My kid got on that bike tonight and practiced and practiced, determined to get out of bike camp. He persevered much longer than I imagined he would. No, he did not ever truly ride the bike, but with someone (2 or 3 people at times) helping him balance he did pedal it. He was also able to balance by himself with both feet off the ground for a couple of seconds at a time. Yes, he will still be going to bike camp tomorrow and he is still dreading it. The cynical me, the pessimistic me, has thought silently for weeks, “two out of eight kids won’t learn to ride the week of bike camp.” The mom that I wish I could be, the mom that I SHOULD be, will be with Tate every day this week telling him, “You can do it.” Both of us will be proud of him no matter what.

And if he DOES master two wheels? I should probably have a talk with him about that ride to the mall fantasy he is having. 

Read Part Two here: http://quirks-and-chaos.blogspot.com/2014/06/on-two-wheels-part-two.html

I would be so appreciative if you'd tell me in the comments section below where you saw this post. It has been circulated more than any post I've written to date and I'd love to hear where some of you have found it.