social calendar

It is known in our family that I am in charge of our social calendar.  Well, I just hired an activites planner.  Wed. and Fri. Caeden was in charge of our daily activites.  Wed. He decided we should visit Sun Harvest, so we did. We shared a smoothie, played on the playground, bought some delicious juice, and tasted the juice and oranges. Fri, he decided we could ride bikes to Coconut Point and visit that playground.  We didn't have our car today and he wanted to ride his bike by himself.  I am learning when he makes a decision he needs to learn how to follow through with it.  So instead of easily saying " no that is too far, you can't do it, just ride in the stroller."  We set off to Coco Point.  I was willing to let him turn around at any point, but he just kept bikin along.
He rode in front of me and I pulled Owen in the bike stroller.  I got to teach him all about:

 going along with traffic, 

staying inside the bike lane and on the side walk,

pushing the crosswalk button, 

how to get off the bike and cross the intersection,

paying attention to cars and other bikers/pedestrians, 

not giving up when it is tough,

getting back up and riding after a fall,

having a healthy fear of cars when riding your bike,

how to look for the safest route,

how to listen to my direction and determine right from left.

We got there, played on the playground, visited Planet Smoothie (his decision again), and rode home again. 6.5 miles and a few hours later.  I am so proud of my son and best thing of all, he feels a sense of real accomplishment because he didn't give up.  Look at all the teaching opportunities I would have missed out on if I had chosen the easy way and made him ride in the stroller.  We had so much fun.  I am probably more exhausted than him; mentally beacuse of all the talking, surveying, scouting, and watching, that I had to do. I felt like a mother bear that was willing to protect her cubs at any time if a car got too near.  

I am thankful that the Lord is teaching me to embrace their independence, turn any experience into a teaching opportunity, and let their mistakes/misbehavior be a teaching tool in responsibiltiy.  

I will gladly accept the help from our new family activities planner.

Tonight we are off to see the races at the Naples BMX Track. (parents idea)

By the way, I finished the book, Practical Parenting from Birth to Six Years, and highly recommend it.  It has allowed my anxious fear of when and where and how the kids might act up to turn into joy from teaching my children to learn gracefully from their mistakes and let them have ownership and responsibility in how to handle and "fix" each situation.  I really needed to read it, very easy to read, and easily applicable practical parenting tools.