Death by Heart Attack

This will be the headline of the article about how a mother of 3 {me} died of a heart attack while her children rode their scooters across the street.

Now that the weather is warming up {a bit}, the kids have been doing a lot more this

That's them.... all the way at the end of the sidewalk... waiting for me on their scooters.

Coming up to Broadway, one of the intersections you will read about below.

 instead of being in the stroller.  Which is good, because honestly, I am not a horse.  It is getting close to physically impossible for me to get up some of the hills pushing a 4 1/2 year old and a 3 year old, with an almost 1 year old strapped to my back {or front}.  And I'm a pretty tough chick.  Part of me is bummed though, because gone are the days where I get to walk at my own pace {fast} and not have to worry about one of my kids getting hit by a car.  For my sanity I have allowed Asher to stay in the stroller as long as he has.  I know people think I'm crazy, but I just haven't been ready.  It's like deciding when to potty train... it's really about when the parent is ready to deal with things.

Well, yesterday was one of those days where I wished I could just strap them into the stroller and go.  But no, I took them on their scooters to the post office and to register Asher for kindergarten.  Both things took a long time, and both times I was constantly telling them "stay there", "don't touch that", "settle down", "come here", "stay close to me",  "hold on to the stroller", etc.  They were actually pretty good, considering that I told them we were going to the park, and instead took an hour plus to run errands, then went to the park.   This is actually not normal for me... I pretty much NEVER run errands with my kids, at least not all 3 of them.  Sayer and Bart are easy, but add in Asher, and things get a little out of control.  Park days with all 3 of them are generally very enjoyable, except for the getting there and back part.

For example...

We're crossing the street to come home from the park.  It's a 4 lane street with 2-way traffic, but it's only a 3-way stop as we were on Riverside drive coming from the park.  There's a little median in the middle.  The light is red for us, so the boys are scootering around behind me.  I tell them to come close to me so that when the light turns green, we can go fast.  You have to go fast, or you might miss the light, because it takes a little longer to cross the street with a stroller and two crazy boys on scooters.  Well, they don't listen {of course} so the light turns and I yell for them to hurry.  Asher comes and I see there are no cars that would be turning into the cross walk, so I let him go on ahead while I am still telling Sayer to hurry up.  He seriously takes for-e-ver to get to me, and by the time he does, we have missed the light.  Asher is already on the other side and scootering away, so I have to YELL for him to stop and wait.  I'm sure at this point, people think I'm crazy and in way over my head with all these kids on scooters.  So Sayer and I wait for the light to change while Asher {thankfully} stays put.  Finally we go, and I'm practically dragging Sayer because he wants me to let go of his scooter so he can "do it by himself" and I refuse to let go.  When we reach the sidewalk, both kids take off at full speed to the next corner, with me YELLING, "STOP AT THE CORNER".  This is a normal thing.  I tell them {read: yell at them} at every corner.  To their credit, they always stop.  But they get a little too close to the edge for my comfort, so I continue yelling, "get back from the edge Sayer, SAYER get BACK from the edge!!!"  When I get up to them, I give them the talk {again} how they can't get too close to the edge, because their scooter might roll into the road {which happened yesterday, by the way. Yeah, I freaked out} or a car might drive by too close, etc etc.  Aaaaahhh.  So. much. anxiety.  I think I lose a year off my life at each intersection.  When we come up to a little one way street, it's no problem, but the big intersections are really scary.  One time last fall I made the mistake of letting Asher go all the way across a 4 lane crosswalk (picture above) with out me holding his scooter, and a car turning left {thus passing through the crosswalk} barely missed running him over.  I about died.  Drivers like that make me so mad.  It's not that they don't see him, because I know they do, it's that they see all the people in the crosswalk and are trying to make it through before we reach where he turns and he has to wait.  But he must not have accounted for the speed of a 4 year old on a scooter, because they pretty much hit the exact same spot at the exact same time.  I don't know how they missed each other, but I do know that Asher was completely oblivious to any problem, which is really scary.  

Anyway, so yeah.  That is a pretty normal trip home from the park for us.  I'm sure you can understand why I usually opt for strapping them down and pushing 80 plus lbs all around town.  To their credit though, they really are getting better, and are generally good at listening to me when I tell them to stop, and they ALWAYS stop at the corner.  So that's good.  It will just take a little more practice, a few more near death experiences, and a few more times with me asking them if they want to die by getting hit by a car.  Hopefully that image will sink in soon for them. :)