Garbage Rider

Some days are still cold, but Spring is here.

Shane discovered his new garbage trucks from Nana are large. Large enough to ride.

I'm well aware that their use as a vehicle is not intended.

I inwardly cringe whenever Shane hops on. He's going to pancake at some point. That's the price of playing the game.

I swept all the gravel out of the way to try and prevent the sudden stops. I don't let him drive towards the dumpster either. The driveway flattens out towards the street so it helps him come to a manageable spot.

No big spills yet. He's fallen forward a few times, but nothing that's required a band-aid.

I think of it as "reflex training."

This is where my parenting philosophy and Carrie's diverge. She works to eliminate risks and is more cautious. I figure that if it hurts, Shane will learn not to do it. Either that, or he'll learn to be more careful in the future. That's how it worked with my siblings and me (Oh, the stories.....).

On my side, I want Shane to have a sense of adventure and confidence. I want him to try new things. Sometimes he'll fail and sometimes he'll succeed. I work to help Shane avoid death and severe injury, but I'm not adverse to him collecting bumps, bruises, scrapes, or even a bloody nose (Chicks dig scars).

On Carrie's side, she wants Shane to live long enough to develop a sense of self-preservation. She has a point, too. He's pretty reckless. He'll try and run off into a crowd or try to sprint out through a parking lot without looking for cars. Shane moves first and thinks later (he's "Full of Mike"). I grabbed Shane the other day when he started to try and cross the street while a car was coming. The car was decently far away, clearly saw him, and came to a stop. However, Shane didn't notice it until after I stopped him and said, "LOOK."  ("A white car, Daddy!" -- and that's why I stopped you, kid)

In the end, we both want whats best for Shane. Carrie knows how I feel and I know how she feels. We talk and work out whatever's needed, because that's what we believe good marriages do. It works well for us. As Shane gets older, we hope he'll see and learn from that.

And thus, I turned a short fun post into a longer rambling one. If you don't want to read, just watch the video!