January #everydayonabike Review

January is a few hours from being over. Hard to believe, but also exciting - for it means that spring is nearly here (well, after February that is). I'm counting down the days until March 10 when we can spring forward on our clocks and enjoy an extra hour of sunlight! Also, Lila starts at Benny's old daycare at the end of March, so there's a lot to look forward to post-February. Not that any of that is relevant here.

Although I didn't collect photos from every day this month for #everydayonabike, I'm only missing pictures from five days. Not too shabby. Maybe I should have called it #almosteverydayonabike? Allow me break it down for you:

53 photos posted // 31 photos tagged by others // 22 photos tagged by me // 10 contributors

I'm a little amazed about how this challenge has changed the way I think about biking. I'm much more likely to hop on my bike for everyday tasks now than I was before the challenge. I'm much more likely to ride in cold weather. If nothing else, it's been a great motivator.

Also, congrats to @mrsweichbrodt for winning the $10 Starbucks gift card. Be sure to email me your address and I'll put the gift card in the mail for you!

Stay tuned for the February #everydayonabike theme and drawing! Thanks to everyone who participated this month:

@familyride // @shaggybrownie // @cathope // @runbobbierun // @emfritz 

@mrsweichbrodt // @simplybike // @annabhu // @smilingcolleen // @sallylhunt

Um, Er, Can I Get Back to You?

Otherwise known as frequent scenes from my class this quarter.

There's nothing like lecturing about a subject matter that I'm not super familiar with to students who are very smart to make me feel like a complete idiot - on a regular basis.

This quarter I'm teaching about Media Effects & Consequences*. It's a section of media/communication studies that is rooted in psychology and sociology and stats and testing and quantitative mumbo jumbo. I'm more of a critical, cultural theory kinda gal, so sometimes I get a little lost in the details. Like, for example, independent and dependent variables. I swear that when I planned the lecture, I completely understood the two and how they applied to a certain concept we covered tonight. But then, there I was, scratching my head trying to explain it to the students. Not pretty.

There are a lot of um, er, can I get back to you moments. And I'm sort of okay with that. Since this particular class is a graduate-level class, I'm very happy to discuss things with the class and try to figure them out. If that doesn't happen, I'm happy to come home, work through it in my head and try again.

Despite my lack of knowledge on this particular subject, I'm having a great time teaching this quarter. The class is dynamic and interesting. Students aren't afraid to ask questions and state opinions. I want to be an approachable professor and I want students to understand that I don't know everything. But, I can't help wonder if this half in/half out lifestyle is hampering my teaching in a way. I have a variety of responsibilities to deal with every day - from grant writing, to meetings, to cooking, to playing with kids. Pile class prep on those activities and it's no wonder I'm a little off in my presentations. It probably didn't help that I was gone for a longggg weekend and didn't have time to work on lectures last week.

There's no real point to this post, other than to acknowledge that I have a lot of room for growth in my teaching. I'm just happy that I have the chance to stretch my academic muscles every once in awhile.

*For the record, when Benny asked about what I was teaching, I gave him the example of how sometimes we watch TV and sometimes it helps us learn, sometimes it makes us happy, sometimes it scares us - you know examples I thought he could relate to. His response? "Mom, doesn't everybody already know that?" He summarized my own questions about the field I study in one simple sentence. 

The Potty Chronicles // No More Diapers!(?)

Before you get too excited about what that means, let me throw in a caveat: No more cloth diapers. I just put my last load of cloth diapers in the washing machine. No joke. I haven't been using them very regularly for the past few months. You better believe that this mama is super excited about the end of cloth diapers in this house!

 For the past few days, Lila has been rocking the underwear, so we haven't used many diapers at all.

We have a few disposable diapers left, so we're saving those for night time. And I've been waiting to use up the leftover pull ups that we used for Benny (stored up in the closet for nearly two years now!).

I'm not celebrating just yet. Lila still has her fair share of accidents and I have to remind her nearly hourly to sit on the potty. But, we're making progress. And progress is good.

Learning to Ride without Training Wheels

If you have a child between 2-3 years of age and you think he/she is ready to start learning balance for biking DO NOT buy him/her a bike with training wheels.

When Benny was small, I remember seeing a couple of kids ride balance bikes to the park. Then we moved into our house and the boy down the street could totally rock his balance bike - and fast. We signed up to the revolution and bought Benny a balance bike for his third birthday. He wasn't too keen at it at first. Turns out that kids need to learn balance (shocking) and a balance bike is the perfect tool to practice because kids can feel secure with their feet on the ground and gradually learn to balance.

By the time Benny was three and a half, he could ride long distances on his balance bike. By the time he was four and a half, it was clear that he was almost ready for a bike.

I wrote about Benny's first (successful) bike ride here. When Benny was ready, Nate held the back of his bike for less than a block and Benny took off. No struggling, no falling, no crying. Just fun.

And Zulily has Strider bikes on sale today! Don't miss out! Once the weather is more predictable and we have time in the evenings, we'll strap on Lila's helmet and watch her start learning how to balance on the bike.

Biking and Life

If there's one thing the Everyday on the Bike Challenge has taught me, it's that life sometimes interferes with goals. (That's not entirely true - I'm pretty experienced with life interfering with the goals and plans - but it sounds more dramatic this way.) In January, I was forced to park my bike thanks to weather and a last-minute out of town trip. I also missed out one day, I'm a little ashamed to say, because I was making a trip to an area of downtown where I don't know the bike lanes.

Otherwise, I made near-daily trips with Benny to school, to run errands, to meetings, to the park, and around town with family. It was a good riding month, indeed.

As the first month of the challenge winds down, I'm happy to report that I've collected photos of someone biking for almost every single day of the month. Don't forget to submit an #everdayonabike photo on Instagram (tag it!) for an entry to win a $10 gift card to Starbucks*. I'll profile an #everydayonabike rider next week and I'll announce the winner of the gift card, so check back on January 31.

*Starbucks is not a sponsor of #everydayonabike.