“Can you help me so I don’t go too fast?”
My daughter and I took today’s mile with her on her bicycle and me on foot. Each decent, she asked me to slow her down if her bike started to move too quickly. She didn’t panic. One time she even braked on her own without looking to me! She just wanted to know that I would be there to slow her down if she needed.
Maybe twice my hand did more than reassure her that I was there. She would’ve been fine without me but two times, I did slow her down as she asked. Then the pavement evened out and she brushed away my hand or shrugged her shoulder to dismiss me until I learned the pace.
Three quarters of the mile through, a street sweeper drove back and forth along a parking lot. It was loud. For a while, we stopped and watched. It reminded us of the Snort in Are You My Mother by the way its loud noise dominated the air.
She was afraid so I told her we could run, walk, or bike to the stairs where we would cut away from it. She chose to walk at a regular pace but her eyes were glued on that truck. Once we were safely on the steps, she seemed to have forgotten.
“Want to see where my house is?” she asked.
In a clearing between houses, she pointed.
“Right there!”
And it was. We went a little further and whistled at the boater on the lake. It took a few whistles but Freddy waved back and we continued on our walk.
megdanielle 
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