This week, while we spent a few days in Red River hoping to have a chance to lend a hand at the stables, Lily was able to explore and develop a few cool new tricks.
Cecily began riding a two wheel bike this summer; she commenced her balancing act on 12″ wheels. Shortly thereafter, she decided to give the 16″ wheels a try, because the 12″ bike didn’t like the dirt roads her Papa kept trying to get her to follow him onto. Low and behold, she discovered the 16″ wheels were easier to ride with, less squirrely, and easier to go faster. She had successfully mastered just about every basic skill necessary, except getting her kickstand to cooperate (it just needed to be used a bit in order to loosen up). She even figured out how to do some of the tricks Russ demonstrated for her.
Not many weeks after she first got the hang of it, she spotted the collection of bikes we have in the shed that were retained from when Savannah was little. We still have all the bikes we had for her, each graduation in wheel size and feature. There happened to be a purple bike in the collection, with hand brakes no less, that Lily set her sites on. I tried to convince her that it was going to be too big… it had 18″ wheels after all! And for a day or so, she agreed, it was for sure too big and not stable enough.
Then, one morning she awoke and asked me to check if she’d grown, and subsequently spent the morning having me modify the seat height and reflectors, and install a better kickstand, bell, and front bag. By lunch, she was taking the new, “18” wheel bike” all over the place. She promptly rode to her good friend Thalia’s house to announce she was no longer on the 12 or 16″ wheels, but 18!! Yep! And the best part?? Thalia, who is 9, has a bike (albeit a bit too small) that also has 18″ wheels – so Lils is sure she’s really big now! (I think I will put my 24″ mountain bike together for Thalia today, or maybe one of Sav’s 22″, and offer it to her to borrow until spring, when her parents get her a new one. )
Lily and I rode all over Red River this week thanks to our Trailgator and her new 18″ wheels. The Trailgator is a device that allows us to connect our two bikes in tandem which, in turn, gives me the peace of mind that she isn’t going to ride into traffic, and her the chance to observe more of her surroundings and develop the foresight and wider vision necessary for her to safely ride as independently as she’d like, without me constantly harping on her with instruction/direction/correction.
The 7″ tablet continues to be a great new tool and toy for Lily, as she is expanding her reading, technical functionality, and overall cognitive abilities by leaps and bounds. She is almost entirely self sufficient at both a Windows based environment, and Android. Russ installed Ubuntu on the pc that is connected to our TV a short while ago and Lily has managed to acclimate and successfully navigate the Linux OS just as smoothly as any other. She has learned that in order to get at what she wants, which is invariably a specific game or two from her “favs” collection, she has to read what is on the screen. She’s learned how to spot browsers, how to connect when/if the connection isn’t auto, and how to manipulate the interfaces well enough that she can accomplish whatever she wishes. Stupid errors and weird stuff like security measures still stump her, but other than that, she demonstrates the attention span and sufficient abstract thought to satisfy her digital intentions.
To that end, she still does not like books. Oh, there are a few exceptions, but gone are the days (at this point, anyway) where she will pick up a book and dive into it. She never did show much interest in us reading to her from a book, and has rarely chosen to read through one (even just pictures) on her own, unless it was an instructional/how stuff works type of book, but now, she just looks it up online. She found the Google Voice Search the other day and we hear her asking her tablet questions frequently, then bringing us the table to sort through the slew of results.
This past week she demonstrated use of a few additions to her vocabulary, including an instance of using the word, “distinct”. We were exploring the streets of Red River on bike/foot, and came upon a pond with relatively large koi swimming about in it. She didn’t see the fish at first, how I”m not sure, but I don’t think she was looking for the movement as much as something sticking its head up out of the water or something. She finally did catch the black fish as they swam by, and then a gold/white, 12″+ came into the shallows and right at her feet. I think it did actually stick its head up out of the water at her, as it was as curious of her as she was of it. 😉
“Each is so distinct (referring to the fish), just like these rocks (held in her hand).”, she stated rather dreamily, and then abruptly snapped out of it and hurled the rocks into the pond.
So, then we had an interesting conversation on environment disruption, invasion, fear, threat, respect, and compassion.
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At one point, while sitting on the kitchen floor, surrounded by singing bowls, she stated how cool it was that she could feel the bumps in the vibrations created by the bowls. I responded that her description was absolutely brilliant, and offered that we English speakers happen to have a word for those bumps, if she was interested in knowing about it. She responded favorably, which isn’t always the case – sometimes she prefers to stick with her description and/or word(ing) that she makes up. I explained and voiced the word, “reverberation”, and she mimicked in turn, commenting on the size of the word. She then used it a couple days later, though it came out a bit tweaked, she’d retained the jist of it.
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For a while now, Lily has been fearful of jetted tubs. Well, not anymore! Now, I am fearful of flooded bathrooms and/or her floating away on bubbles.
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Xoomxoom also appreciated our trip to Red River this week… or rather London’s pillow in the back of the car on a sunny day. He ousted himself from his container and promptly displayed his preferred resting place.
And finally… Up next: Borneo.