A Big Sister
I thought about making a separate blog for each of my kids, and maybe I still will, but I want to be able to talk about Drew and Lizzy on Madison’s blog, because they are a big part of her life, and trying to illustrate who she is without mentioning them would be both pointless and obstructive.
Drew was born when Madison was about two and a half. It was really fun having even numbers in the family. Drew is named after myself, as well as the famous Hungarian poet, Ady Endre. He’s got a curious nature to him. His imagination is unmatched. Everything he sees he’s able to create a world around.
Drew was and is still unmatched at a large number of things in our family. He broke Madison’s height record at every age (until tying her at 6). He also plays the widest gamut of video games of anyone in our family, and I play games for a living! He’s beaten multiple titles from Apple Arcade, some of them more than once. I’m not sure how long the list is of people who have beaten Grindstone, but count Drew among them!
He started speaking at a very late age. We had hardly said a word to each other by the time he was almost four years old. I remember catching him coming off a 14 kill Fortnite game and asked what happened and he said “snipa wifle” and that was that. Now he’s six, and read a book to me today.
His little mind is easily bored by the limitless option of toys at his disposal. He has a bike, a scooter, an iPad, a Switch, a hangout space, a playground in his backyard, but he’s always searching for something new. He just wants to play with his older sister, because there is another.
Lizzy showed up when Drew had just turned three. She was trouble. She’s a monster. She constantly picks fights, whines about everything, is a total drama queen, and is sweet as can be. See!? Trouble!
She was also slower than Madison at finding a reason to speak up. Where Madison was singing her ABC’s at 19 months, Lizzy can almost squeak them out now that she’s three. But despite her shortcomings in the language department, she has done things that would amaze you.
Her biggest accomplishment in my book is that she rode a bike at two. No, not a scooter. No, not a balance bike. No, not with training wheels. I mean full-fledged, real deal, two wheels, pedals, chain, bike bike. Two years old.
I knew it was possible for a two year old to ride a bike because I remembered seeing my cousin do it as I was growing up in Canada. I remember his parents finding it odd that he didn’t want to get left behind as his siblings rode.
With Lizzy, I noticed that she would zip around quickly on the balance bike, pull her feet up, and coast. That balance aspect is the hardest part to train a young kid; to turn left if you’re falling left and right if you’re falling right.
I put the training wheels back on Drew’s bike and taught her the motion of pedaling for power. I encouraged her to go faster and faster. The faster she went, the easier it would be for her to balance. She picked that up in about a day and a half to the point where I felt comfortable taking the training wheels off.
I ran with her for as long as it took for her to feel steady and balanced. It didn’t take long before she was endlessly looping around our back quad area. Now it’s nearly impossible to prevent more of this when Lizzy says “Dad will you push me on my green bike please?”
Madison is still the one in command of these two; Drew wants to spend all of his time playing with her, and Lizzy wishes she was her. Together they make a pretty cool group and I’m proud to be their dad.
AdyEndrus, posted on August 31, 2021 Tuesday at 11:29 pm Leave a Reply
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