S was in heaven! We arrived at the camp site before everyone else and so he got to go on the 4 wheeler (a slightly bigger, but just his size one) before the rest of his cousins. (Who had mostly all been on one already). I didn’t realize he was going to drive it on his own. Once we got all the safety gear on him and he sat down I kept wondering how my husband was going to find room to sit behind him. I mean it seemed way too small. But because the thought of S riding a bike on his own was not anywhere in my consciousness it was not as obvious to me as it would have been to any other sane person watching. Once I did catch on to what was happening I re-strapped S’s knee pads and elbow pads and helmet and let him go!
He followed his father for hours! He loved it! M had J on his big bike for a while then she wanted to try it herself so he left her under my supervision to ride circles around me literally. She kept trying to go off but the second she got a few centimeters away from where I was comfortable she would come back in fear of her mother making a bigger fool out of herself than she was already making. At some point S came back and asked me to loosen his elbow pads cause they hurt. When I looked at his arm it was kind of turning blue because I had cut off the circulation so I obliged without admitting, of course, that I made it too tight in the first place.
The kids had a great time. I sat there for the two days praying for sun set to come sooner so they could get off their bikes! S didn’t stop riding till his hands went numb and his thumb hurt him from pushing the accelerator (right? is that what it’s called? excuse my ignorance). He had two falls. One because he was looking behind him and ran over a bump which sent him flying, the other was just bad luck. No injuries but a small scratch on his back. Better he learns now, when I have enough control over him to put helmets, knee pads and elbow pads on him and enough sense now to listen to our warnings and learn how to ride properly than later when we are not with him and he’s speeding like a maniac. Not that he won’t speed like one when he grows up anyway, but I guess if we at least give him a good foundation and try and hammer in common sense he will stay safe.
Baby B enjoyed the sand. He picked everything up, not necessarily a good thing, but surprisingly only put sand in his mouth once. I think that was all it took for him to know that sand was not on his list of yummy things. I am not a desert person. It’s fun, don’t get me wrong, but I spend most of my time panicking about the people who went driving, the children who are on the bikes, the insects and scorpions and a whole manner of ridiculous things I found to worry about.
When night came the children played for hours in the sand. They dug holes and built little hills they called mountains. Then they decided to have a hole digging competition. S said “we will call it Baba’s Deepest Hole competition! and Baba can be the judge!”. Then J chimed in saying “Baba’s hole of Death!” then S said: “Baba’s hole of Death and Darkness!” Not sure if that should worry me. Told them no Baba’s hole of death and darkness. Just keep digging. (all the while thoughts of a story I read about a child who got buried in a hole he had dug in the sand at the beach were running through my head) So I stood there, like a crazy person going “DON’T DIG TOO DEEP! DON’T STAND THERE! DON’T JUMP OVER THE HOLE!”
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