Stay right, stay right!” I yell. Pedaling behind him, I watch my five-year-old wobble down the pavement on his bike. While he’s put in hours of practice at the nearby park, this is his first time on the road.

Despite my urgent tone, my heart is calm. He follows my directions, moving right when asked and braking on cue. At stop signs, he stops feet before the line. He even yells, “Stop!” to warn me. Despite the wobbly shoulders, it’s as if he’s done this a million times before.

This was a vast contrast to a year ago.

Back then, I was deciding whether or not he should graduate from his balance bike to two wheeler with pedals. At the time, he sped around the park, hid behind the buildings there, and was generally a menace. To put it succinctly, he was three. Even though his judgment wasn’t perfect, I did buy him a regular bike for his birthday. He was quite good on the balance bike and practiced pedaling on the tricycles at preschool.

Watching him on the road now, I know I made exactly the right decision.

This responsibility emerged in part because I laid down the law. I cultivate a free-range attitude about most things. But as a cyclist myself, I’m reminded every day of the risks of riding on the road. After all, cars are big and you are small. Biking requires quick reflexes, high awareness of what’s going on around you, and excellent judgment. As I told him, you have to be “visible and predictable” to drivers. So when it came to the bike, I was a bit of a hard-ass. I never threatened to take it away permanently, but when he was having difficulty following directions, he often walked instead of rode it home.

I can’t take credit for most of what I see today though.

So, so much of it is him growing into that “big kid bike” and the maturity that comes with it. He’s been learning more and more not to give into random impulses, whether poking his brother or riding out of my sight. He’s making those connections between being responsible and gaining more freedoms. Riding on the road is only one of the milestones he’s tackled in the past few months.

As our kids grow older, it’s easy to mourn the loss of what we no longer have. I loved watching him on his balance bike, his little feet pushing off the ground. I loved his first efforts on his two-wheeler, wildly spinning the pedals and shuddering to a stop. I even loved picking him up when he crashed onto the grass or mud, kissing his scrapes. And now those things are gone, never to be experienced again.

But new things have replaced them. Riding on the roads and trails. Riding together with him pedaling himself, instead of being stuck in the trailer.

In the future, it will be biking to school or to get ice cream or even down into the city. Long summer afternoon rides with endless hills. Short fall evening rides with the moon as our companion.

And one day, it will be him riding out that door without me. Off to his own adventures and responsibilities. But none of that is just yet.

For now, we are together on the road that runs by our house and that is enough. It is enough for me to watch and warn and encourage him, right now, in this moment.

This is what it feels like to grow up – for him and for me.