Just Like the Big Kids

I just had to post this photo. Is that a happy kid or what?

We've had this old Razor scooter someone left in our dumpster a couple of years ago, and Celie and Joey had been taking turns using it. Then Joey got his own scooter as a gift over Labor Day weekend. Now scooters have become the means of transportation of choice to school in the morning, it being a downhill ride the whole way. Poor Biruk has been left with boring ol' Mom in the boring ol' wagon, trailing the big kids as best we can down the hill.

Biruk would watch Celie and Joey on their scooters with such longing! Whenever he could get away with it - usually after they were in school and so didn't know better - he'd put on their helmets and wheel their scooters around. He couldn't actually balance on them, so he would settle for walking along side one of them, or dragging the scooter on its side over the rough pavement. It made our walks home from school a v e r y long process, since he would insist on going as far as he could before getting exhausted.

In the interest of family peace, Biruk's motor development, and my desire to go faster than 0.5 mph on the way home from school, I got Biruk a three-wheeled scooter. The good news is that he can stand on it. The bad news is that he doesn't get the idea of pushing off with one foot yet, and so we're still walking it at 0.5 mph. I have confidence that will come with time. In the meantime, I'm enjoying his enthusiasm, and practicing my living-in-the-slow-lane skills.