Learning to ride a bike

Last summer Rion wanted to learn to ride his bike. So we tried to teach him. We spent countless hours trying to help him. There were many times that he seemed so close to taking off. And then he would fall. Then came the tears and the self-doubt. Rion doesn't do well when things are hard and riding a bike was proving hard. Many of our lessons ended with Rion crying that he would never learn to ride his bike and me frustrated that he gave up so easily. Meanwhile, Torii, who is never one to give up, was riding his bike all over the place. Near the end of summer, Torii's bike broke. Since Rion didn't look like he would be riding it any time soon, I let Torii use Rion's bike. More recently, we've been enjoying an early spring and spending a lot of time outside. A couple of weeks ago Torii took out Rion's bike since his bike was still out of commission. Rion had a fit. He wanted to ride his bike. Dreading a repeat of last summer, I asked Rion if he was really going to learn to ride his bike this summer. He said he would so I prepared myself for another tough lesson. But before  I could get another word out, Rion hopped on his bike and took off. I asked him if had been practicing lately and he said he hadn't. And just like that, my little bird found his wings and learned to fly.