Learning to ride a bike and loosing teeth...

This week was quite eventful with bike riding and loosing teeth...luckily they did not happen at the same time. Jacob came up to me today and said he wanted me to take his training wheels off so he could learn to ride his bike without them. I couldn't help but think of the last time he tried to ride a bike. He tried one time and gave up. I did all that work of taking off his training wheels, putting his knee and elbow pads on, buckling up his helmet and trying desperately to build his confidence only to have him give up after 10 seconds. Maybe today would be a new day. I could only hope.

Jacob was really excited to give bike riding another chance so what could I do. I dutifully removed his training wheels and got him all prepared to try riding his bike. Malia, Cole, Deena and Claire were all watching anxiously as I held the back of Jacobs seat and slowly started walking with him while he pedaled. I took four steps and let go. To my complete and utter astonishment Jacob was riding his bike all by himself. Now I know what your thinking...can he turn?...or stop??. Amazingly I answer yes to both questions. Jacob picked up bike riding faster than anyone I've known. I was quite impressed. He could turn and stop like a pro and stop without any help from me. Needless to say he was super excited and wanted to go around the block several times. We declared the day "Jacobs special day" and let him lead us (Malia, Cole and I) around the block. This is a big deal because Malia and Jacob always compete to be the one in the lead.

Jacobs success motivated Malia not to be outdone. Malia's two top front teeth have been getting more and more loose. For several days she had been commenting "tonight I'm going to lose a tooth." So the very night Jacob learned to ride his bike, Malia again said to me, "I'm going to lose my tooth tonight." There was only one difference, this WAS going to be the night. Malia bravely let me twist and tug on her tooth. I managed to get one side of the tooth out, but the roots on the other side were hanging on for dear life. The blood and occasional "ouch dad that hurts" was enough for met to lose the heart to finish the job...and for Malia to lose faith in me. So she went to mom. Deena laid Malia over her lap face up, and started working on the tooth. After a few minutes, Deena turned to me and said, "I can't get it, I can turn it all the way around, but it's not coming out." I told her to just keep twisting it and 10 seconds later Malia's tooth popped out! She was thrilled...now the tooth fairy could come leave her some money.

In the morning Malia was so excited to see that the tooth fairy had left her $2. When I go home from work Malia showed me the two dollars she had got, then quickly added, that one of her friends got $10. What a cheap tooth fairy.

The next day Malia's other tooth came out. The tooth fairy was out $5 that time.