ridiculous.

This is the billion dollar moment of chaos that inspired me actually post again after my 3-4 month hiatus. So we got Grant a bike with training wheels a few weeks back. He’s a bit skittish about it at times but overall is getting more and more brave. He’s wiped out numerous times and has never cried and has always just gotten back on and started again. He’s very nervous about going down “hills”. Hills to Grant are the slopes on either side of a driveway along the sidewalk. We’re making progress here as last week he kept grabbing at us to hold his hands on the hills saying he didn’t like going fast and this week he’s speeding up to go on them. Peter has been at me for 2 weeks to let Grant ride his bike to the park. I have avoided this because I just couldn’t figure out how I was going to walk beside Grant and push or carry Henry at the same time. The next time Peter has these fantastic ideas I will tell him where to put them. So today the sun broke through and the timing was right so I told Grant we were going to try riding to the park. The park is down the road from us maybe a little over a ¼ of a mile. It’s also DOWN the road from us and the closer you get to the park the more the road declines. It’s not steep by any stretch but enough to make me remember it is downhill when we’re walking back. So we get loaded up for the park, Henry on his trike with the pushbar, and Grant with his helmet and on his new bike. We get about halfway there with no problem whatsoever. Up to this point I only had to continually remind Grant to look where he was going as he tends to focus on his front wheel and not look ahead. When suddenly he starts saying “Moooooommmm.. MOOOOMMM MOOOOOOOOMMMM.. IT’S TOOO FAAAAST” and indeed he is moving quite quickly in front of me. I realize I’m going to have to leave Henry at this point so I push his trike off into an embankment of beauty bark and head off running after Grant yelling “USE YOUR BRAKE.. GRAAAAANT.. SQUEEZE THE BRAKE!!” repeatedly. Finally I catch him and say “Grant.. you HAVE to remember to squeeze your brake to stop.. or you can push your feet backwards” and we practice a couple of times quickly. I tell him to stay right there because I need to go and get Henry who I can see is trying to dislodge himself from the embankment. As I’m running halfway back to Henry I hear the SAME “Moooooommmm.. MOOOOMMM MOOOOOOOOMMMM.. IT’S TOOO FAAAAST” from Grant behind me again. I turn quickly to see he’s somehow heading BACK down the hill. Off I run again to try and catch him and he’s so freaked out he’s actually PEDALING which is only making him go faster. By this point the ridiculousness of it all has hit me and as terrified as I was about him crashing or going off into the street I started laughing. There’s a reason you don’t see competitive runners laughing while running - it seriously hinders your ability to make your legs work right. So by this point I realize I’m not going to catch him and I’m yelling at him to go into the grass. He wobbles a bit and crashes into the grass. So, completely out of breath I catch up to him and find out he’s ok. He’s actually laughing about how he fell on both of his hands (go figure) and I’m just glad he’s not at risk of being in motion any longer. I quickly stand him up realize he’s fine and tell him to STAY PUT while I run back and get Henry who is dangerously close to getting off the embankment and careening down the hill in a trike with a locked wheel (not that he could steer it anyway). So I’m running back to Henry and I’m halfway there when I hear AGAIN “Mooooommmm.. MOOOMMMMMMYY...” I literally yelled “you have to be freakin kidding me?!!!” and turned around to see Grant had ditched his bike and was running back towards me in the street in the bike lane. So I’m yelling frantically to “GET BACK ON THE SIDEWALK” and I see two cars slowly approaching and I literally see them assess situation: the ditched bike, the runaway 4YO, the sweaty, disgusting, panting mom in the middle, and the 2YO who had just freed himself from the bank. And then I heard hysterical laughter. I could not blame them. It was ridiculous. We managed to get everyone to the park in one piece where Peter pulled up 2 minutes later in his new scooter, smiling and completely oblivious to the past ten minutes of hell that I had just endured. I made him run home and get the car so we could have a much less stressful trip home. So, if anyone happened to be running a video camera down our street this afternoon, I want my cut of the money they’ll get from America’s Funniest Videos. On the other hand, I totally skipped going to the gym tonight.

Tomorrow I will be posting new-ish pics and some other general updates.. I just wanted to document this crazy afternoon's events.