Six weeks straight we've been visiting the Lumberyard. Sometimes twice a week. 3-4 hours at a time. When it was time to leave during our first visit, G ran away from me and hid under a half-pipe. Since then, it's not gotten much easier to leave but his skills have grown expedentially. He's not carelessly brave but he's not timid either. He works it out, watches older kids then dives in.
There's only two places in the re-purposed bowling alley that he has yet to master: A steep descent of a fly-over bridge that he just slides down, and the bigger, more technical, Blue ramps and pipes where kids do flips and aerobatic tricks that require one to be older than 4 and have pedals on their bike. He'll drop in on these ramps, but needs a push to get up the other side. A few more pounds and a chain driven bike not made out of wood and he'll be doing flips off "the wall" before he sleeps through the night with a dry pull-up.
Despite how much fun we are having, what keeps me bringing him back are the 8 or so other 3-5 year olds showing up regularly. The first time I took him on a weeknight without his buddy Max, he wouldn't ride. Taking A to watch was what broke him through to showing up without his best riding buddy. Yet today, he was high-fiving kids of all ages and knew them by name. As another dad said, "What else can you do with your 4-year old where you both work through challenges and build skills?"
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment