riding bikes

We posted this video a few days ago, but I wanted to catch up with some comments about it. When we moved into our apartment in February, Maya and Max quickly discovered all the toys of our next-door neighbors' 4-year-old boy. One of his toys is a balance bike that soon had Maya's attention. She started grabbing the bike at every opportunity and pretty quickly became quite good at riding on her own.

As an interesting side note, Max tends to be more adventurous than Maya. At the park, he'll wonder off on his own more readily than Maya will. He'll go down slides and climb ladders sooner. When Maya began riding the bike, we thought Max would want to join in and that they would soon be fighting over the one bike. But for whatever reason, Max didn't show any interest in the balance bike until recently.

After a few weeks, we bought a tricycle for Max, which he was thrilled about but in which Maya had no interest (only the balance bike for her). At that point, we were taking walks with Maya on the balance bike and Max puttering along on the tricycle. The difficulty was that the two kids would go entirely different speeds with Maya would cruise along on the bike (especially when going downhill) and Max moving at turtle pace. The video gives a glimpse of this difference.

Since taking the video, we have purchased a couple used balance bikes, and now Max has more interest in the bikes. We're enjoying the ride of watching them grow up.