Bikes and Books

Ashlyn is moving out of a grumpy reactive phase and maturing into a much happier, more stable mood – which is great.  It is really fun to watch her grow and mature.  I am convinced much of the reason behind this transition is the confidence she has gained recently from learning to read and learning how to ride a bike.  I noticed this with Tierney too – but the explosion of the mind, the body and the resulting confidence of this combination is amazing. 

Ashlyn is conquering reading.  She still struggles with new words a bit, but understands how to sound them out and loves doing it on her own.  I have found her recently putting herself to bed with books and sitting quietly on the couch reading.  Incredible – really – to watch this transition from a go-go-go high energy girl.  She loves the independence it gives her. Perhaps she likes how she can share reading with her big sister too?

Ashlyn’s biking is equally great to witness.  She loves to ride to school now.  2 weeks ago we were riding around the ‘neighborhood’ – actually we call it riding around the block – which is really just down our dirt road and turning left 3 times on dirt double tracks with 16 inch grass in between the tire tracks and on the sides.  It’s pretty intense mountain biking for someone just learning to ride with small tires going over fairly good sized rocks.  Anyway, she fell pretty hard on the dirt and scraped her knee and hands.  She screamed at me for not catching her and said she was never getting on the bike again.  Literally 10 seconds later, I reached down to pick up the bike ready to push it home on my own with a mad Ashlyn pouting behind me, but she grabbed it from me and said, “No – I am riding it!”  And with a smile she said, “Daddy, will you start me.”   I was happily shocked – her stubbornness pays off.  

Tierney is reading everything – and reading really well.  She is great with Ashlyn and encourages her to try new words and let’s her stumble through without correcting her too much.  Her biking is amazing to watch, and her swimming, and her football and today I taught her how to dribble a basketball at ISM after school.  She picked it up in seconds.  Gabriel, her piano teacher, told me that he loves how calm and focused Tierney is during class and loves teaching her.  He told Lisa this a few months ago as well, but it was nice to hear again today.

I don’t remember really learning to read, but I remember learning to ride my bike – 14 Trowbridge street, Newton – we had a stump near the garage and I would push off the stump balance and pedal 8-9 times downhill and then crash into the grass.  I must have done that 30 times a day until I figured it out.  I wonder if they will remember learning to ride their bikes to ISM in 35 years?

While not reading or biking (with pedals) yet, Anderson is off to school and loving his time there.  I picked him up today at 2:30 and he was sitting talking to his friend Kavi (3yrs) while eating pineapple, cucumber, carrots and watermelon as a mid-afternoon snack.  Good stuff.

And finally, the new fascination with music is hilarious:

Tierney and Ashlyn chillin’ out after dinner