We (and by we, I mean Joe) took Layla's training wheels off last week and Joe a few different nights helped her learn to glide and then ran behind her while she pedaled. Today we (and again, I mean Joe) worked on it some more and she was pedaling all over by herself. Well, near home that is:-). She still struggles a bit with turns and getting distracted by trying to smile for pics and such, but I'm confident that with even more practice, she'll be riding even better in no time! Right before heading inside today, Gibs was riding his bike on the road by Joe and and I thought that Layla was looking pretty brave coming at him with her bike pretty close to where he was and then, bam, she crashed right into him. I think she panicked and didn't know which side she should go on to get around him or something and somehow they ended up crashing into him. It was a minor incident though and they were both fine. Gibs doesn't love riding his bike. He thinks that it's too much work and on trikes, he's rather just use his legs to push. He's capable of pedaling, he just doesn't like to do it for very long. But I'm sure eventually, he'll get better at it and think it's easier and therefore like it better. He says he just likes to coast:-).
Layla recently has been talking about kids that get money for doing chores. I may have told her about that, or she may have heard it from someone else, I'm not sure. We don't do that in our household though. Anyway, so the other day at Gavin's, the kids told me that Gavin was in charge of making sure that Layla and Gibs did their chores and then Gavin would assign a value for each chore and reward them (with pretend non existent money). Gavin was standing on the porch watching while Gibs and Layla were sweeping bark off the driveway. This made me laugh because this is so typical to how they play. You can certainly tell whose oldest! It's so funny too because when Gavin isn't playing with them, then Layla steps into the oldest child role and bosses Gibson around. I'll often hear Gibs telling Layla, "Can I be the dad today because Gavin isn't here?". Otherewise he is always stuck being the kid. Layla likes the idea of getting money for chorse you can tell because she today while riding her bike thought it'd be a good idea if we paid her money every time she did well on her bike. :-)
While I'm remembering to write things about the kids' daily conversations, I found it funny the other day when for some reason I was talking to Layla about allergies and explaining to her what that meant. Guess we don't know anyone with allergies (hard to believe, I know) because she didn't really know what that meant. I told her how if someone that is allergic to something, has that certain something, that they will then have a bad reaction. In all seriousness, she said, "Oh, so like how I'm allergic to going to bed." Ha, guess that explains some of her issues! Actually, most nights she goes to bed fine, but some nights definitely turns into a whole different person when she's in bed! Her troubles started when we moved her, so I'm sure she'll always go to bed like an angel when we move into our new house:-).
I also found it funny tonight at dinner when Gibs randomly asked why we don't have tails. I told him that I guess God thought we didn't need them, to which Layla said, "And because we'd look pretty dorky if we had tails". :-) We had dinner with Joe tonight because he had a meeting at church before our evening service. He was installed today as an elder in our church and already since being elected, has had 3 meetings in the past 5 days!! Ahh! This could be a really long three year term!! :-( I'd say that I hope it goes by really quickly, but really, I don't. I love our kids at the ages they are at, and Layla will be going into third grade, Gibs into first and Greta will be going into preschool when he finishes and that just seems like way too much to think about right now!! Crazy that he got off of council (he was a deacon last time) three years ago (they give you three years off thank goodness) already. His last term, we started with not even thinking about having kids and ended with two kids. A lot can change in three years!
Daddy staying close by...
Going down the road all by herself!
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