Overconfidence

Ane has been spending a lot of time on her bike lately, especially since she learned to ride without the training wheels.  She feels quite grown-up, and will often accompany the Webmaster on his walks around the block on her bike.

Yesterday evening, Jay knocked on our door to see if Ane could ride bikes with him and Little Mo in our cul-de-sac.  Little Mo was working on learning to ride her bike without training wheels as well.  I sent her on out, and she had a good time riding around.  Eventually, Tad joined her on his trike, and I was outside with them while the Webmaster ate some dinner and watched Rerun.  (The Webmaster was donating blood and got home late, so we ate dinner without him.)

Ane was pretty pleased with her newfound bike skills, and I saw her getting a little too aggressive in her turns.  “Slow down, Ane – I don’t want you to get hurt,” I warned her.  “She’s getting too overconfident,” I commented to Little Mo’s dad.

“One good fall will learn her,” he replied.

And just as he said that, Ane crashed.  She fell sideways and skidded a little, and knocked the wind out of herself.

Tad went running to her.  “Ane, are you hurt?  Are you okay?  Did you break your bike?”

She slowly got up, limping a little.  She’d skinned her knee pretty raw, and her bike seat had a pretty good hole on the side, created by her skid across asphalt.  I reported the bike damage to the Webmaster (who patched it with some duct tape), and took Ane in for some first aid.

“I want a Princess band-aid,” she told me.

I took a look at the bleeding knee.  “Honey, you’re gonna need a bigger band-aid than that.”  She’d created a good fifty-cent sized strawberry on her knee.

To her credit, she was back on her bike right after getting patched up.  And I noticed that she was being more cautious this time.

Her knee’s going to feel pretty stiff today.  But that won’t keep her down.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 14th, 2011 at 1:31 am and is filed under Children.
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