"The bike's not scary, no, it's fun!"

Children are funny. They get themselves all excited about something that they've never done before, and then when the time comes to actually do it their excitement is replaced with fear and tears.

In Adela's case, it was riding on the bike with Jonathan.

Adela had only ridden in a bike seat once, when she was a little baby. But at home, before we left, she found this little bike helmet and began wearing it all the time. She loved wearing that helmet and constantly talked about riding on a bike. We told her that when we got to Taiwan we would get her a seat to go on the back of her Papa's bike. She couldn't wait.

When we got here we pointed out children riding with their parents. We showed her Jonathan's bike. She was so excited about getting a bike seat to ride in, until Jonathan actually took her to get it. In fact, she was so upset by the bike seat the first time he tried to take her to get one, that she had a huge meltdown at the bike shop, and Jonathan ended up having to leave the bike parked somewhere because she wouldn't even walk back next to it.

A couple weeks later Jonathan was out on his bike and had stopped to get something on it fixed. The shop had a nice baby bike seat so he bought it and had them put it on. He went to my work, where he was picking Adela up, and tried again to let her ride in it. She again would not, and so they walked together to go get some dinner. They waited for me to finish work, and we tried again. Jonathan had explained her behavior to me, but I was shocked to witness it myself! The screaming and tears were very unlike her and unnecessarily dramatic!

We decided not to give in this time, and instead we compromised that if she rode in the seat, I would walk next to her holding her hand. This, apparently, was an acceptable solution. Jonathan walked the bike and I walked next to her holding her hand. The next block he got on and rode slowly while I held her hand. And as she felt the warm evening breeze blowing in her hair, she suddenly relaxed. All on her own, she let go of my hand, so she could hold on to the little bar in front of her seat.

By the time I caught up with the at the end of the block, it was as if she had never been afraid of the bike. She loved it! And the whole rest of the way home she kept saying, "It's not scary, no, it's fun!"