Freedom!

I’m not the only one who was recently liberated by a set of wheels. A couple of weekends ago, Lydia finally learned how to ride a bike! I know that most six year olds already know how to ride a bike – believe me, I’d been feeling guilty for not teaching Lydia earlier. It was just hard to get motivated when we have no driveway, no open parking lots, and no quiet streets to practice on. This is what we have to work with:

The open area (shown above) near the swimming pool is the largest, flat area - it’s often filled with kids on skateboards, wave boards, bikes, roller blades, scooters, and little cars right along with kids playing kickball, racing cars, and hula hoops – all at the same time. It’s the size of an average back yard in the U.S., but is shared by all the children in 300 apartments.

The other areas in our apartment complex are all sloped, like this ramp (shown below) leading up to our apartment. The ramp near the pool is downright treacherous as all the kids on the skateboards, wave boards, bikes, roller blades, scooters, and little cars also like to race down it! Fortunately, Lydia has good enough sense (or simply isn’t brave enough yet) to attempt riding her bike down any the slopes.

It took just 20 minutes for Lydia to figure out how to balance on the bike and then she took off. The look of surprise on her face when she finally got it was priceless. You could tell that she suddenly felt confident, independent…and free.