The One About Needing Her Momma More Than The Training Wheels
In some ways, I feel like I'm already listening to the *tick* *tick* *tick* of borrowed time. When I was her age, the training wheels were gone and I was flying free through the neighborhood.
But, I was far more independent than she is. I was born trying to run away while she has spent her life trying to crawl back into the womb. It's one of the ways our personalities are fundamentally different.
While I rarely ask for help (one of my faults, if we're being honest), she asks for help entirely too often.
It's OK, though. It's good to be needed and not a day goes by without the short person making me feel VERY, VERY, VERY needed.
Maybe a little too needed.
At 5 1/2, she still flat-out refuses to ride her bike alone. She still refuses to ride her bike fast. She still refuses to even consider putting her feet on the pedals when within 50 feet of a hill. She still demands that I hold on to her at all times.
And if I demand that she try being a little independent, that she act a little more like the Big Girl she is on the outside, the waterworks start.
She may be starting to look like a Big Girl, but she still needs her mommy. In her heart, she's still a Little Girl.
Sometimes I think this growing up thing is harder on her than it is me. She wants to be a Big Girl, but she most definitely isn't ready just yet.
Just keep borrowing that time, Alexis. I'm kind of enjoying it.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Reader Comments (13)
LOVE this! Love this especially because I see the same thing with my boy who still is struggling riding his bike without the training wheels or my help.
My daughter spends half her time telling me she's a big girl and the other half telling me she's a little girl. In many ways both are right. It is the dichotomy of this age, on the brink of big kidness, that is tough for both sides. For me, I struggle between letting her fly free and holding her close, just as she struggles as she finds her wings. (To use a tired old metaphor.) Its totally okay with me if they stay this age just a bit longer, mama isn't quite ready to take of the training wheels either.
Oh my gosh, this was the scene for us just tonight! I took Scout to ride her big girl bike, and she just kept panicking. Every time I took my hand away from her handlebars, she just melted down. After about a half hour, she was getting the hang of it, but so sad.
It's crazy isn't it? Part little kid and part big kid. How do you balance both? Even though Jack is only 2, I see it in him. In some ways he is a big kid and other ways not at all.
oh, how do you do it? that face, those tears...my heart is breaking for her and she isn't even my kid! wait. maybe that is why i ache for her.
Those tears KILL me! I was a very cautious child (completely opposite my own 2 fearless, dare-devil boys) and didn't ride a bike without training wheels until I was about EIGHT! The good news is, thanks to my mom, I still grew up to be a fiercely independent woman.
Enjoy the closeness while you can - I hear the teen years are a beeatch.
Thanks for sharing. My 5.5 year old is extraordinarily independent. We have always called her a roller coaster kid, the faster bumpier and higher the better. At 18 months she would climb the tallest slides at the park by herself and slide down. At 2 she was riding the kiddie rollercoasters at the fair by herself. At 2.5 she was charging waves in the ocean with a life vest and a boogie board., getting pounded by the surf and coming up laughing. Enter the bicycle. Wow> Drama. The story you have told describes our every outing. We try practice patience and enjoy the moment, but it is so out of character that we spend a lot of time trying not to laugh at the sheer hysteria our daughter whips up. Last week she was screaming "I'm gonna DIE" over and over as we were coasting down a flat hill at a slow walking pace and I was holding on to her back/seat. Then she finally had enough of her near death experience and twisted the handlebars sharply to the left and dove off of the bike to the left crashing into a heap on my feet as I clung to the tail of her shirt trying to figure out how this had happened. Now sobbing "I told you I was going to DIE." Her leg was twisted and wedged in the training wheels and I initially thought it was broken (it was not.) Now she at least has had a bad experience to explain the drama :) Happy to hear there are other kids who believe riding a bicycle is insane.
Those tears break my heart every time! Sometimes I feel like a kid who needs her own momma in my heart too. I think it's a battle we wage our entire lives. I bet she learns to ride without training wheels tout de suite if & when her friends start teasing her for it.
My kid will be eight in just over a week, and she still has training wheels. Of course, she has ridden that bike all of three times this year; the scooter has become her thing.
I tell myself it is like potty-training; she will do it when she is ready. And if I am being honest, I, the over-protective mom who both likes and wants to be needed, am okay with her putting this off for awhile. I watched her zoom down a walkway at the park and fly off the scooter (and thankfully into the grass) when she hit the bottom. That was hard enough to watch!
This post makes me think of a commercial for Ford or Chevy where the dad is telling the little girl in driver's seat to be safe. Then the girl "turns into" a teenager. I cry every single time I watch that commercial.
So, so true, and it fits so perfectly with how I've been feeling lately. We went to Idlewild yesterday, and the push and pull of childhood almost had me in tears!
P.S. No wonder her dad can't say no to that face!
Aww... those tears are killing me. Even when they are all grown up and you take the training wheels off (or they move out of your house) they are still your little girl and will still need you to stay close.
BB is very like me in this way. I couldn't ride my bike for years. He had a jack-knife incident early on and is very tentative on his bike. My tentative bike issues came from a crash with a metal trash can. Heh.
I adore these pics.
Same issues with Maggie. Our neighbor will be 5 this fall and she's riding a bike without training wheels. Maggie has a tricycle and she doesn't even really like to ride it. I think she's afraid of it! Goofball, that one. SIGH.