First he goes missing, next he’s barrelling downhill. It was different in my day
For all the stresses and travails of parenting – without which, this column would be sorely depleted – I’m frequently reminded of how easy I have it compared to others. Having come from a family of 11, I’m aware how much easier it is having just one child, even in those moments where my heart is in my mouth and beating itself to death. Last week I took my son to the park so he could have a little run around on his favourite mode of transportation, a weird little trike we got him a few months ago. I say ‘run-around’, but it’s more of a ‘crawl around’ as his trike is an odd, pedal-less contraption, powered by the tiny feet of its driver, which pad him inch by inch along the pavement, at the speed of those marathon runners who collapse just before the finish and have to be helped over the line by their rivals. What it lacks in speed, it more than makes up for in its ability to occupy him for ungodly amounts of time. During which I relax my usual panic about where he is and what he’s doing, since the answer is always, ‘The exact same thing he was doing five minutes ago, but 8cm further along.’
That was until Wednesday, when he discovered a steep slope and started barrelling down it with the confidence you might not expect of someone who has never exceeded the speed limit of an injured tortoise. In my complacency, I’d missed this descent and for a few terrifying seconds he was completely out of my view. Every horror scenario flashed into my mind. Had he been grabbed by squirrels? Plunged to the fatberg-ridden depths of an unseen drain? Thankfully, these ruminations were short-lived as I found him sprawled at the foot of a tree. There he lay, unharmed and jubilant, having just experienced the drama of the lowest speed crash ever recorded.
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