1m2aSandbox

Yesterday afternoon I picked the girls up from school, then rushed to get Maddie ready for ballet and an appointment afterwards. I ran out of the door with Maddie in tow just a half an hour after the girls had gotten home from school, with only a quick kiss in Cora’s direction as she settled in for an afternoon with Grandma.

By the time I got home a few hours later, Cora had done her homework and eaten dinner and I felt like I’d just missed the whole afternoon with her. So I scarfed down a quick bite and said, “Hey, Cora, want to go for a bike ride?”

A smile split her face and she screamed, “Yeah! Just you and me!”

This was our first real “adventure” bike ride together: up until that point Cora had ridden just to school and the park. She was excited, wanting me to take her some place “wonderful”. Cora rode in the lead and simply asked me to tell her where to go: “Turn left at the next street. Go two blocks. Cross the street and go right.”

I steered Cora to an adjacent neighborhood’s pond, somewhere she’d never been before. We dismounted and sat on a rock in companionable silence for a few moments, Cora snuggling happily against me. She sighed. “This is so beautiful and peaceful. Thanks for bringing me here.”

I kissed the top of her head. “You’re welcome. But it’s getting close to bedtime – shall we head back?” And I gestured towards the right, down the path we’d come.

Cora looked longingly to the left. “I just wish I could go a LITTLE bit further, and see what’s down the path.”

I smiled. “Ok, we’ll go to the next street so you can see where the path goes, then we’ll turn around and go back. Sound good?”

We made our way to the next street and Cora sat at the busy intersection, trying to take everything in from her new vantage point atop a bike. “So where does everything go?”

I gestured behind us. “Well, that way is back the way we came. And that way –“ and I pointed in front of us – “is the long way to go home, past another pond. Would you like to go that way? It’s a way you’ve never been, and there will be a big hill to ride up at the end. It will take us a while but we can go that way if you like.”

Cora looked in front of her at what was, for her, the unexplored country. Then she looked at me, eyes shining. “Let’s go the long way home,” she said, then added (I’m not making this up), “There’s much of this world I have yet to see.”

And off she went.

That? Is what I love about my kid.