It was his first time outside the boundaries of our home in two weeks. Should he use the scooter? His bike? Walk? He got his sweater on, pulled his cap on, and fitted his mask into place without skipping a beat. All the muscle memory spring back to life so quickly. But the light in his eyes and the spring in his step meant that this wasn’t any ordinary day heading out the door.
After two weeks of quarantine in our home, it was such a relief to be able to get my middle child out and about. He had it the hardest of all of us, being confined to the home since the first family member got sick and the last to get sick himself, so the longest in quarantine of any of the children. What a trooper to get through it.
We had the youngest in tow, so we weren’t going to be blazing around or going far. Still, nothing could stop the middle son from grabbing his bike. I told him to take a couple of laps around the block and meet us along the path. He was off in a flash, feeling the wind and sunshine in his face.
Even the youngest is getting used to walking again, with shoes that is. He took a few stumbles and added some bruises to his forehead. Welts of all shapes and sizes have regularly adorned his noggen since he became mobile, but he’s been relatively free of them these last two weeks. Good to see him back at tackling this whole walking with shoes thing, even if it means some tears along the way.
1 minute and 49 seconds after we had started along the path, my middle son was back with us, inquiring about his circuit time. Had him do a few more circuits before he joined the youngest and I in our slow amble around the path. Inspecting solar lights, surveyor marks in the asphalt, seeds, shadows, and all those other things that jump out at you when you are 70cm high.
All told, we spent over an hour going around the circuit, which must not be much longer than 200m to 300m in length. Seeing their beaming smiles when we made it back to our yard, it had to be one of the best hours we’ve spent in the last two weeks.