Scooter’s Shades and Bikes

My children wanted to go outside after dinner tonight.   It was nice weather and there were other children on the street out playing so I said let’s do it.   My daughter wanted to ride her scooter, which is great I thought, only I hope she can see where she’s going.

She got on her helmet (she insists on safety) and some crocs, which double as braking devices when necessary.   She got on the scooter and started to fly down the street.   And when I say, “fly” what I mean is, “go faster than I was comfortable with”.   I watched her careen down the street—and I do mean literally “down” the street as there is an increasing decline in grade all the way to the cul-de-sac and into the neighbors steep driveway.   The very same driveway that was the ten stitches in the chin driveway from a few years ago with my daughter.   So one minute into the scootering and I was already mentally bracing for carnage of some sort.

But my daughter was relatively proficient with the scooter brake and didn’t crash once.   She could also apparently see larger shapes around her because with the other children moving around on bikes, scooters and skateboards she never got close to running into anyone.

My son came out shortly after that—in shades.   He thought he looked pretty cool, smiling at nabbing his father’s sunglasses from the counter shortly before sunset.   He got his helmet on and pulled out his bike.   He wasn’t interested in riding a bike much last year and this spring and summer we avoided bikes because my daughter was completely blind for a good part of the time and we found other things to do with them that didn’t emphasize her lack of vision.

So when my son rode off immediately and then stood up to pedal and then let go with one hand to wave at me (all the while chewing gum) I realized he’d finally gotten the whole bike riding thing.   A few minutes later I told him to come back because I thought he needed air in his tires.   His tires and Whitaker’s tires were barely holding up the bikes.   I got tires and some ancillary balls inflated and then watched them all hoping for no scraped knees, busted faces or other injuries.

As adults we can see all the things that could happen—a lot of those things being bad things.   It’s why we say, “be careful” and a litany of other warnings.   I wish I could go back to that unworried age where I didn’t know what could happen because I was too busy having fun.

At the end of the night no one was even mildly scraped and everyone was tired, including me.  Only they rallied and are still up for some reason at almost ten.   Maybe they’ll sleep late?

The Big Boy Update:  My son told dad the other day, “I think dark-skinned people look better bald than light-skinned people look bald.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Color differentiation with my daughter is questionable.   But sometimes she surprises me with what she can see.   Tonight after reading some braille letters and numbers (dutifully rewarded with M&Ms by me) she started to eat them, looking at the color of each.   Note that she is heavily influenced by her brother who likes a lot of super hero things that involves colors and powers associated with those colors.    She picked up each M&M and remarked on it before putting it in her mouth.   This is a sample of what she said:  “Ooo, red—fire.  Ooo, orange—desert.   Ooo, blue—water.  Ooo, green—poison.  Ooo, yellow—lightning.”   Those were her M&M powers tonight, she told me.