a boy & his bike

Hard to believe that just 3 years ago Joshua headed off for the first day of kindergarten. Now he gets himself to and from school (true we live a lot closer to the school here than we did in Winters, and there's no traffic to speak of here and a better walking, etc. environment here than there). Brian was a little hesitant for him to walk by himself last year - but I was sure he'd be fine...I mean, I'd walked to and from school the exact same way throughout my elementary school years...same streets, same sidewalks. And he's done just fine.


His big desire has been to ride his bike to school. He's finally conquered his bike and is a good rider. He pays attention to what he's doing and he knows all the hand signals (which is better than me!) Back in August, before school started, I let him ride his bike downtown to the library or the store or something by himself (he'd ridden down once or twice with supervision). So when school started up, we told him that he could ride to school on some days - but he has to be ready by 8 and he doesn't ride on Cub Scout days. Oh the joy in his face!


I always wanted to ride my bike to school, but was never allowed to...there were lots of reason and none of which I can remember now. But I wanted to Joshua to be able to do that...for a boy especially that bit of independence is so important. True, he's had some boys give him a bad time...wanting to borrow his bike, telling him that the chain was falling off, trying to get the combination of his bike lock, etc. But he's being assertive and telling them no - and I told him their main problem is all of them are bus riders who live out of town and can't ride their bikes to school, so their probably a little jealous. He's so excited to get to take off on his own and get to school in this "cool" way.


One morning I took the camera out and watched him leave and took a couple of pictures. He keeps both hands on the handlebars, doesn't look back to see me, though he did yell "bye" one more time because he knew I was standing there. He's keeping his eyes on the road. Before too long it'll be a car he's hopping into and taking off for school and not looking back because he's focused on where he's going, but he'll know we're standing there watching him and making sure he's safe and he'll yell, "bye" but keep going.

How quickly the years go...