balance bike - a bike without a pedal

A few months ago, we've decided to get Curious George a balance bike for his birthday. Balance bikes are bikes without pedals in order to teach little ones to balance. A bike with training wheels doesn't really do much to teach kids. Balance bikes run anywhere from $100 to upwards of $300. But since our family is now in the poor house, we have to do it the cheap way. We bought a $35 12-inch bike at Wal-Mart and Daddy removed the pedal. Actually, arriving at what size bike to get Curious George ruined the surprise. We measured his stance and went to the store, but that didn't quite work so we had to bring him in. And of course we couldn't get him out of the store without one. So with much negotiation, we finally just broke down and gave him an early present. Which then ruined one more thing - the pedal. He loved pedaling around the store, that when Daddy surprised him the next day with the bike with missing pedal and training wheels, all hell broke lose. And the fact that he didn't sleep well the night before made the 'hell' even worse.

But after the nap, we were able to convince him to try the bike without the pedal with the promise that Daddy would put the pedal and training wheels back on if he just but try first.

Here is what happened:

As a balance bike, he should be able to put both feet flat on the ground, so this is just a tad too high. But Daddy couldn't make it any lower. Still, he did very well. We are very proud of Curious George. This video includes me screaming with excitement about his little run of balancing so I had to cover it up with pretty music. :0) After about half an hour, Daddy finally put the pedal and training wheels back on, at which point, Curious George became a speed-demon.

Unfortunately, it rained the next day so we had to occupy Curious George another way. Here is Daddy and son bonding over Lego.