20th Annual Rädli

On the May 1st Labor Day Holiday, we participated in an open house of sorts, centered around all of the hobby, crafts, and sports organizations at home.  Each of the stations was connected by a sort of scavenger hunt map.

We decided to do only part of one of the four possible courses.  Even though we only did a few stations, we ended up logging at least 10km on our bikes.  Quinn can relatively easily do this distance...and even Emily did a large portion on her tiny bike.

We went to a few cool stations, including the Wasserwacht (a type of lifeguard), the rowing club, and the fire brigade.

Emily was super cute on the rowing machine, and I even got to go with Quinn on one of the boats and rowed for a bit.

Yes, I love taking pictures of the small chappels that spot the countryside in our area.

The downer was the accident that Emily had on her bike.  While going down hill, she started picking up speed, waited too long to brake, then slammed on the brakes when she started going too fast.  The locked wheels skid on the asphalt, she lost control, and flew over her handlebars.  Thankfully, she was ok (but super scared), but she had quite a scrape on her forehead, despite the helmet.

 To her credit, once we got home, she wanted to ride her bike again.  Brave girl!

Bad Parenting ?

There are times as a parent where you are staring at a situation with your child / children and think to yourself 'I'm not too sure this is a good idea'.

I had this feeling a few days ago, when Quinn continued to persist to allow him to do the BMX course near our house.  I've been avoiding this whole topic for quite some time. 

At first he couldn't do it because he didn't have a proper bike (True:  his kiddie bike with coaster brakes would be way too dangerous).  After he got his Big Boy Bike, he asked pretty quickly if he could try.

I then resorted to the tactic, 'You need to get comfortable with your new bike, so that you could handle it'.  Check:  we went mountain biking a few times, and he can now handle his new bike pretty well.

So, after one of our mountain biking tours, he asked, and I gave in...with two conditions: 1) no other kids were there (no need for him to try to do better than the other kids.  He is just that competitive), and 2) Papa tests it first to see where the tough parts are.

Quinn was happy to see that there were no kids on the BMX track.  Now it was my turn.  While I'm a very experienced road and mountain bike rider, this was my first time on a real BMX track, and the first hill was, well, scary.

Not for the downhill itself, but for the uphill and bumps that ensued.  I saw myself in a hospital.  No way.

What do I tell Quinn?  No, you can't do it because Papa is chicken?  Both Eva and I try to be very consequent with our 'conditions'.  If we say it, we mean it.  But, in this case, I couldn't.  So, I just told the truth (too scary for Papa), I told him why, and I showed him the points that could be dangerous.

I told him a million times to be careful, not to get his front tire too high in the air, and to have fun.  I was hoping, perhaps even looking to the sky praying, that he didn't have an accident.

Quinn smiled from ear to ear and was completely out of breath from adrenaline.  He did the loop a few more times, wanting to do more, but I feared that our good fortune would eventually run out once he got more tired.

Sometimes, as a parent, you just have to say yes...and hope that hindsight doesn't force you to realize that the decision was one of those 'bad parenting decisions'.