Motorcycles

Have I told you about Jack's glider/run bike before? I can't recall and I'm too lazy to go back through previous posts and find out. Jack got a glider bike for his birthday. It's tiny, the perfect size for him and it has no pedals or training wheels. The purpose is to teach little kids how to balance on two wheels without any aids and then later make the transition to a typical bicycle (sans training wheels). I thought the concept was interesting and kinda neat, plus I love to find unusual kids stuff and this was really one of the only bikes we could find that was small enough for Jack. Jack has loved this bike. He calls it his motorcycle because it resembles our neighbor's motorcycle. He almost always "starts" it by swiping his hand across the top bar between the handles, and it is very loud (or so he says). He started off pretty slow on the bike but pretty quickly gained the required coordination to actually run. Then last night when we decided to go on a post dinner walk he took off down the sidewalk and almost immediately lifted both feet off the ground and coasted for a second or two. My jaw about hit the ground. I'd seen him experiment a little with picking his feet up but I'd never seen him coast like this. He was actually riding the bike in the way it was intended. He was coasting and balancing on two wheels! Tonight we went out again and I saw him coast from our driveway all the way to the next driveway. I am super impressed.

Coasting on his bike motorcycle.

Riding with our neighbor/friend Haley (Jack's best friend). She too apparently wanted to pick up her feet. Perhaps not the same effect on a tricycle, but kudos to her for trying!

Haley's dad, Mike, has a motorcycle (or two). He was riding it tonight and Jack was very interested and asked if he could sit on it. Mike was fine with it and Jack sat there for quite a while, quite thrilled to be sitting on a big motorcycle. This is his very serious (hysterical) impersonation of the look on Iron Man's face. 

Haley decided she too wanted to sit on the bike. This was a photo opp we couldn't pass up. I particularly love Jack's helmet and Hailey's sunglasses.