It's amazing what motivation can do for you.

Last Tuesday (October7th) we had our National Night Out block party. In our neighborhood, there's a stable with horses. Several of the ritzier people in our neighborhood have horses. The lady who owns the stables, brought her own horse for the kids to pet and ask her questions about.

Caroline has been obsessed with horses for what seems like forever. My older sister is looking for a place to take Caroline to get a horseback riding lesson. Well, at the NNO block party Caroline learned that she could not learn how to ride a horse until she could ride a bike without training wheels. Apparently it's a balance thing.

Yesterday, Caroline came in bright and early asking me to take her training wheels off of her bike. After asking twice she left my room and all of a sudden the house got very quiet. The kind of quiet when you know the kids are doing something they shouldn't. I got up and went around the house to check and see what was going on, and found both kids outside. Caroline was sitting on the ground with her bike on it's side, and her brother standing over the bike from the other side saying, "That won't work, try that one." It turns out Caroline convinced her brother to help her get her training wheels off. When I walked out they had a variety of tools spread out on the ground trying to get the training wheels off. They had managed to get one off, but couldn't figure out how to get the other off.

When I brought Caroline home from karate, we took the other wheel off and started out with the balancing thing. After a couple of tries, she took off down the street. She's a regular bike rider now. She spent most of her day today riding up and down the street. I heard her say today that it was just paradise riding her bike without training wheels.