Flying Solo

We did it! We made it out by ourselves on the bikes! Not bad going considering we only dusted mine off on Sunday! Steve was out earlyish to help ReLoved leaving us to fend for ourselves and after getting freaked out by Bean's bike Bear was very happy to get his helmet on and get into the WeeRide seat.

He's been freaked out by a lot of things recently. The vacuum cleaner. The lawnmower. And now Bean's bike. And the slide at tots this morning. And my bike too before I put it away. I get the impression that he's going through a pretty major development leap, a shift in perception, suddenly realising that he's actually pretty tiny by comparison to, well, pretty much everything. And just to complete things, he's getting really angry at lots of things too. I think yesterday's anger was at Bean staying home with Daddy while he came out to work with me. He wanted to stay with Bean. He still basically sleeps the time away when Bean goes to preschool.

So we made it to tots unscathed, made it home unscathed. I'm not using the bikes as a means of actual transport at the moment, if that was necessary I'd have to think about getting a trailer or something because Bean doesn't go fast enough on the balance bike. My aim is to enable him to get faster and more confident on his balance bike over this summer, with the hope of making the transition straight onto a pedal bike without stabilisers next birthday.

This afternoon we watched lots of DVDs, played in the garden, played MarioKart, played in the garden. I painted a box black and made another paper mache balloon. And then Bear discovered he can get into my crockery cabinet and made it almost impossible for me to make dinner until I strapped him into his highchair :-/ What an evening. Tired Bean, tired Bear, eventually they both went to sleep in very unexpected ways. Bean requested Daddy to read stories and tuck him in and pray with him. Bear needed wrapping up to let him calm down and chill out enough to settle down to sleep. He was an angry tired Bear this evening. Eighteen months old seems to be a pretty rough age.