'Musical' bicycles

We have 3 girls. Each girl has a bike. Pretty simple, huh?

Not always.

Abby got a 16" bike for her birthday when she turned 4. Ron insisted on getting her a slightly bigger bike thinking she wouldn't grow out of it as fast. I thought it was too heavy for her to ride easily. And for whatever reason, Abby has never liked riding it. Bike rides for her happen rarely and involve pedaling at a snail's pace.

Hannah got a plastic tricycle bike with a push handle for Christmas 3 years ago. She rode it all the time until last summer when she'd outgrown it. We borrowed a tricycle bike from Kristi and Steve's son Noah last year and then for Hannah's 4th birthday last fall, she got a new bike - this time we got a 12", especially since Hannah is smaller than Abby was at the same age. Hannah has ridden her bike quite a bit this summer.

We've put Becca on the plastic tricycle bike a little bit this summer, but she doesn't understand the concept of pedaling yet - or steering, so it's a bit difficult to push her on it yet.

So, we were outside the other evening and Hannah decided to ride her bike. In true, "I'm a big girl too" form, Becca went right for the other bike and refused to even sit on the little plastic tricycle.

Well Abby's bike was obviously too big for her, but Ron tried her out on it anyway, just for fun.


Then he tried lowering the seat on Hannah's bike to see if Becca could reach the pedals on that one. To our surprise, she could. She still had no idea how to pedal or steer, but thought it was a lot of fun when Daddy took her for a quick ride up and down the driveway.


Oh yes, she thinks she is 'big stuff'! LOL


Now, given that Abby hates to ride her bike and Hannah is outgrowing hers... Can you see where I'm going with this?

I asked Abby what she would think about giving Hannah her bike. I told her that if she decided that she wanted a new bike at some point, we would get her one, but she would have to promise to actually ride it if we did get her a new one (her birthday is in April, so perfect timing for that kind of gift). She was more than happy to give her bike to Hannah and has no interest in getting a new one.

However, Hannah has no interest in Abby's bike. She refused to even try riding it until Ron bribed her, just to see if she was big enough to ride it. She did take a quick lap around the cul-de-sac.


So I figure that we have until next spring to really get her excited about a bigger bike. Both bikes are 'princess' ones, and Abby's has really barely even been ridden so it's almost in perfect shape. And if Hannah still insists on riding the smaller one even then, that's fine too - I have the feeling by then it'll be pretty uncomfortable for her though.

And yes - I realize that none of our kids are wearing helmets in these pictures. They do have them and are supposed to wear them whenever they ride their bikes. We didn't put them on for the couple of trips up and down the driveway and Ron forgot to have Hannah put hers on when he got her to finally try out Abby's bike.