Norah gets a new toy!

Last Thursday, I bought Norah a bike. Now, before you get all like my mother and sister and say, "Why didn't you just wait until Christmas?" I'd like to remind you that here in the Basin, the weather is currently gorgeous. Why would I wait until Christmas and lose almost two months of great weather? We don't follow your snowy winter paradigm, man!

She was very excited about getting a bike. I wasn't sure how she would take to it, what with the whole thing of being scared of everything recently, but she hopped right on. She had to learn two things: She stopped pedaling when one leg was completely straight, and as anyone who's ridden a bike knows, that's probably the hardest place from which to start up again, so she had to learn to keep her legs moving; she had to learn not to move her feet backward and engage the brake. When she was riding on her Big Wheel, she would often turn the pedals backward because it was easier for her. When she got on the bike, she would pedal forward and then backward and stop suddenly. So she figured those things out, and she was off!

She's very excited about riding. She never wants to get off the thing! She's going very far afield, too, so although I'm not riding my bicycle as much, I'm getting plenty of exercise because I'm walking alongside her! I figure in two weeks or so she'll never want to ride it again, so we're making sure she gets plenty of riding in right now. She whined briefly about wearing the helmet, but only a little bit.

So she's having a grand old time riding her bike. Our camera is a bit screwed up right now, but bike-riding is better captured ... with video! Here's some of the scenes of Norah riding:













This last video is after she took her helmet off. I pointed out to Krys that her hair looked like Tobey Maguire's in Spider-Man 3 after he becomes "Evil Peter." Oh no, it's Evil Norah!



Enjoy the videos!