Scootin' Sideways

Friday morning was Christian's last test run at the new daycare.  Watching the teachers interact with the kids and how they talk and direct them, I am very impressed and excited for Christian to start on Tuesday!
I had him stay at his "old" daycare all day so he could play with his friends one last time and so I could get some work done around the house. I got the front bushes trimmed, swing hung in the tree and alot of errands done.

One errand was a trip to Target to buy a scooter. With the generosity from a friend, Leslie, who gave me a Target gift card for the adoption, I was able to buy a scooter!  Thanks Leslie!!!  I found one that has a handle on the back so when Christian gets tired of peddling, I don't have to carry the scooter home. It has a foot bar that flips out for him to rest his feet on while I push us home.  Ingenious idea.....wish I had thought of it and got a patent :)

So when I brought him home from daycare, I show him the scooter and he goes nuts! He jumps up and down saying "outside, outside!" So outside we go to ride the scooter.  My back sidewalk is short with a couple of stairs at the end, that I am sure he will careen off at some point, but I didn't want it to be today.
The alleys in my neighborhood are paved and really smooth, with hardly any traffic at all. So I decide we'll zip up and down the alley first, before we venture too far from home.  He has never ridden on a scooter with pedals, so I wasn't sure how it would go. 

We make our way out the back gate, I set the scooter down and he hops right on. I turn to close the gate and hear the plastic wheels cruching rocks at what sounds like a fast pace. There he is, careening down the slope from the gate to the alley, hands gripping the handle bars, legs straight out and eyes as big as saucers. By the time I react he moves the handles bars too sharp, which makes the scooter skid to the side and one back wheel comes off the ground and throws him off.  He pops right back up, says "whoa!" climbs right  back on and heads down the alley slope again.  Oh no, I have a daredevil on my hands and a future ofbroken bones in casts flashed across my eyes.

He figure out pretty quick that the alley sloped down one way and was uphill the other.  He would pick up his feet and soar down the alley with me trotting after hime. Then on the way up the alley he couldn't quite get the hang of peddling just yet, so he would push with his feet. Then at the top he would whip that scooter around and sail down the alley again.  We made this lap over and over again and he loved it.  He doesn't have the concept of steering yet, he would get excited, look back at me and turn the handle bars too.  This made for alot of weaving back and forth and had me constantly reaching down the set the steering right. No wonder I was sore the next day, I need to get into shape!

When it was time to go inside for the night, he didn't understand why the scooter couldn't be brought into the house.  I don't think my furniture, or the cats, would have survived that.  I unleashed him out into the neighborhood on the scooter on Sunday afternoon. He did better with the peddling but the steering still baffles him.  He did get tired so we utilized the foot bar with me pushing him home.  Needless to say, he fell right asleep that night :)
~Amy