I’d like to thank MD Maurice from Mystic, Connecticut, for her very relatable, reflective essay submission ‘Riding with the Wind’, which looks at the frustrating phenomenon of expectation versus reality. The sentiments were reminiscent of my own experiences, and the lessons I’ve learned about parenting little humans.
MD Maurice has been writing and publishing mainstream fiction and erotica since early 2001. She has been previously published in several anthologies, Leucrotia Press’s Abaculus III, Rainstorm Press’s Nailed and most recently in the horror anthology, Once Upon a Scream by Horroraddicts.net. She has also had her work featured in the River Poet’s Journal, Scary Mommy.com and Dark Gothic Resurrected Magazine. MD is an active blogger, full time working Mom and a modern day Alice in Wonderland. She can be found at www.mdmaurice.com, on twitter at www.twitter.com/MDmaurice2015 and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MDMaurice.
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Riding with the Wind
As a parent, there are a few of those milestone moments you know are coming down the pike. Some of them are terrifying to contemplate, like the onset of puberty and all those awkward talks you just know are waiting in the wings. Then there are those moments you look forward to with sweet contentment, like the day the training wheels come off their bike and they learn to ride.
You think you know how it will go. There will be a few bumps and bruises, but they will turn their little faces to you, ready to sop up all your sage advice and guidance. You will encourage and empower them, and they will be determined and grateful. Then comes the reward, watching them glide away from you, the wind at their backs and their gleeful voices singing your praises for delivering them to this amazing new world. You have been their guide, their teacher, their hero. It will have been an amazing parenting win.
When I pulled my daughter’s bike out of the garage, I fully expected the experience to live up to my expectations. I eagerly waited for her to don her helmet and knee pads. I was so sure that this would be that Rockwell-esque version of the milestone I had dreamt about.
Here is how it went down…
As it turns out, my daughter would have been content to operate her bike with training wheels until she was ready to trade it in for a car. Needless to say, she took to the task of learning with barely contained resentment, barking at me each time she wobbled or got banged on the knee by the pedals. If I tried holding her seat, I was doing it wrong. If I tried giving her advice or encouragement, she frowned and snapped at me. Several times she broke into frustrated tears and more than once, I had to walk away from her as she bristled with childish rage and hit me with a litany of excuses. The seat was too high, too hard, too crooked. I was holding her wrong. The driveway was too uneven. We finally decided to take a break. She abandoned the bike and her helmet in a heap by the garage and I went inside to nurse my disappointment.
It was several weeks later before we tried again. The day was the perfect harbinger of an early Spring with a cloudless, cerulean sky above our heads and a warming sun on our backs. This time I had reinforcements. My husband took a break from the yard work to lend a hand. I warned him she was liable to be difficult, even a little mean as she struggled hard to master this thing, she believed she should just “get right out of the box”.
Even with my warnings, he was surprised at the level of open hostility she directed toward the lesson, and us, as her repeated attempts to gain her balance met failure again and again. I could see the collapse of her confidence in her bowed head and welling eyes. My requests for “one more try”, were met with deep frowns and groans but we knew we could not let her quit. As everything threatened to fall apart, we decided to try another approach.
This time we took it to the street, at least the straight strip of pavement consisting of 100 feet between our neighbor’s mailboxes. The roadway was level and the path open wide in front of her with no turns or inclines. We told her to get her feet in position and just get moving forward. We encouraged her to keep going, even if she had to take her foot off the pedal once or twice along the way.
After a few wobbly attempts, she managed to stay upright and pedal for about seven feet. I saw the first smile break at the corners of her mouth and the glimmer in her sea change eyes that signaled the return of a little of her confidence. She had done it, just for a few seconds, but it had been enough. I watched her rally then, engaging all her young grit and determination. She immediately dropped the attitude and began to really listen to our advice and encouragement. After a few moments, she was managing to go almost the full span between mailboxes, pedaling and maintaining her balance. At last, she was really smiling.
The last pass she made she cheekily told me to “watch out” in case she ran me down. Then, just like I told her she would, she was suddenly doing it, riding a bike on her own. Just as suddenly, we were those celebrating parents from a some sappy commercial, bouncing on our toes and clapping in the middle of our street. Watching her riding away from me with the wind at her back, knowing she was smiling under that helmet and feeling accomplished…gave me that milestone moment at last. It might not have come to me the way I imagined, but when it came it was no less sweet.
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