A Step Away

You may have noticed, at the top of my blog page, that I have two girls. One is ten, the other six. My oldest is a high-functioning autistic and although she is incredibly smart, she can be a little slower to do things or to figure things out. This isn't a problem: we all just give her the time it takes for her to do whatever it is she needs or wants to do. This is especially true of bicycle riding. While all her schoolmates were biking around the neighborhood by the end of kindergarten, she showed no interest whatsoever about getting on a bike. However, just within the past couple of weeks, my youngest learned to ride (so that she could get to her friends' homes more quickly) and as they say, monkey see, monkey do, the oldest just had to try too. So we've been working with her for a few days and yesterday she managed to make it down the street with her baby sister riding by her side. She did great until she tried to make the turn at the bottom of the hill. She didn't navigate it well and ended up in the ditch/culvert with a scraped knee. I brought the van down, loaded up the girls and their bikes, took them home and fixed the oldest one's injuries, then got them both a snack. Later that evening she got back on her bike to show Daddy how well she was doing. I'll be helping her learn how to steer through corners, so that she can ride merrily around the block with her sister. The two of them, side by side, taking one more step toward maturity, and one more step away from Mommy. I don't know whether I should be cheering or crying. Maybe both.