The intended title was 'Metro', but plinking is appropriate in most contexts.
Oh, ha. Take my haphazard reading skills, please.
Almost 40 years to complete that Lagos project? Wow. Something something Big Dig.
Sometimes it seems like everyone loves to hate public transportation in DC. Just yesterday Cassandane interrupted my afternoon fuming and asking to drive her to a doctor's appointment after three or four buses didn't appear as scheduled or at all. I haven't had a reason to use the metro in weeks, and discussions of it online often turn into discussions of harassment on it and/or fare evasion, and that's a real problem but it's impossible to have an intelligent discussion of it online. For example.
All that being said, the fact that public transportation is a viable option where I live is high on the list of what I like about it. I didn't own a car for over 10 years. We'd rent a car about once a month for major trips - more often once we had a kid, but still less than weekly - and we'd walk, bike, bus, or metro everywhere else. We got a car during the pandemic and now use it roughly daily, but when the kid isn't around, for example when staying with the grandparents over the summer, that was closer to weekly.
I'm itching to get the kid on her bike more. She's had a lesson or two and several practice sessions but still can't bike herself 50 yards without help and I really want to change that. Children younger than her bike themselves to school, and I'd much prefer that to her being a passenger on my bike. But it seems that if I want to find time to get her to practice biking it'll be a struggle to find the time.
"A journey that once took more than two hours will now take just 15 minutes, Lagos state officials have said."
3: Atossa is seven or so? If she's not riding, lower the seat, and take the pedals off. Have her push and glide to get the feel of balance. Then, put the pedals back on.
But it sounds like she can ride a little? Have her practice starting -- pedal at ten o clock, stomp it - and glide to you, maybe fifteen feet away. (It might help to have Cassandane behind her to start, and you "catch") Do that until she's comfortable with it, slowly increasing the distance. Then braking and stopping. Brake....foot down. Brake.... foot down. If you can find a church parking lot, let her pedal in circles until she has it.
Pebbles figured it out with about two hours of coaching, but she was very motivated to keep up with the Calabat after I said she couldn't do a "big ride" with us on training wheels.
5, 6: Yeah, that's basically the plan. Just need to (a) actually make time for it (yesterday I put some reminders on my calendar, let's hope that helps), and (b) get past her complete lack of motivation.
Riding a bike didn't click for Steady until he got a bike with hand brakes.
Jealous? That makes sense. Never mind.
My kid wouldn't ride a bike until I got him an ebike, which he now takes to school everyday and also he seems to be getting away with not learning how to drive, which is just as well because there are no spaces available in driving school since the pandemic.
Starting my older kid--I guess I can call him Big Milk--on a balance bike real young is the best parenting thing I've ever done. Like, I figure most of what he's good at is because of him, but I take him being a good biker to be 100% my doing.
I'm glad that can work because I started my kid on a balance bike really young and it didn't take.
I did. I heard another go off somewhere in the office 11 minutes later.
13: Damn, I guess that was his doing too.