Aleks learned to ride on two wheels while no one was paying attention. We had tried the whole running-while-holding-onto-the-seat thing a few times, but found it exhausting and usually gave up rather quickly. The last time we'd tried it, I failed to put his training wheels back on out of laziness (or perhaps busy-ness), so they sat in the corner of the porch, along with the bicycle, unused.
On August 7th, I had a meeting in the morning and as I was leaving I told Jon that he had to get up because the kids were on the front porch with the neighbor kid. I made him coffee and put it on the night stand and said, "okay, I need you to sit up. You have to at the very least sit up before I leave because the kids are outside and you can't sleep if they're outside." He did not seem to hear me well enough to internalize it, but as I was running late, I took his slight bit of movement for compliance.
Awhile after I'd left, Aleks came running in the house to announce to Papa that he had learned to ride on two wheels! We were busy being neglectful and he was busy being busy. Go Aleks.
Of course, a little while after that, he ran in the house crying because he'd fallen off his bicycle and re-injured the toe he'd busted open on the sidewalk earlier in the week. Here he is demonstrating his new skills for the neighbor and I:
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