Last Wednesday evening, I was out in the front yard with the boys, when I realized that Thursday is trash day.
So, I decided to open the garage and take out the trash. Nothing too difficult, and actually rather mundane.
Well, when I opened the garage door, Grayson followed me in the garage, and just inside we found the trusty Bobby Car that Frank and Mary gave Jack for his first birthday.
I took the two containers of recycling down the hill, each time returning to Grayson trying to get his leg over the Bobby Car enough so that he could ride it. And each time, I told him “Be careful, if you get on that and start going down the drive way, it’s going to hurt when you fall off.” He’d look at me in his all-knowing, all-understanding 18 month old way, and say something in his baby gibberish like “Puckadoaloo”.
My third trip down the drive way was to take all of the cardboard Christine had dutifully bundled up earlier in the week.
When I got to the top of the drive way this last trip, I grabbed the large city provided municipal grey trash bin, and started to guide it down the hill (it’s usually so full and heavy that it’s all I can do to keep it from running me over if I’m in front of it, or from running away from me if it’s in front of me.)
I turned one last time and saw Grayson almost on top of the Bobby Car, so I say “Grayson. No! Be very careful. You’re going to get hurt.”
And I went down the hill, pushed by the trash can. At the bottom, I turned it to position it at the end of the drive way, and as I did…
I heard this roar of plastic wheels on concrete.
And it was getting louder… and Louder… and LOUDER.
I looked between the two cars that were parked at the top, and saw Grayson shooting out from between them. Hands holding on dearly to the yellow steering wheel. Face turning from fascination to total fear, then to full on terror. His feet were kicked up and he was leaning back. His knuckles were white, and his mouth was wide open… either in a silent scream, or a preemptive cry… I couldn’t tell which.
It went so fast, yet at the same time, everything was moving so slow.
I swear he was moving 50 miles-per-hour down that hill.
And I was moving less than half a foot per hour.
I couldn’t move fast enough to get in front of him, and so, as he got to the bottom of the hill…
I think I heard a sonic boom while he crossed over into super-sonic speed, and right at that moment, he lost control.
The Bobby car’s front wheels turned ever so slightly, and he rolled off to his right, as the car went to his left.
But he’d made it down the hill… a good 25 or 30 feet… at I swear, at least 50mph.
I was torn between swelling pride at my son, the next Evel Knieval, and the fear choking my throat that he’d broken an arm, or a leg, or both, and crushed his face when he planted himself squarely into the asphalt that the road is built out of. I was also afraid that some neighbor might have seen the whole thing progress, and was at that moment calling CPS.
At that moment, I became a super-hero, and cover the 10 feet from myself to Grayson in a flash.
The car was laying on it’s side too. Wheels still spinning… the body all dented in and crushed, and what I imagined was gasoline spilling down the drive way, just waiting for a latent spark to set it off and blow us all to high heaven.
Grayson was laying on his side too. Looking up at me with a questioning “why didn’t you catch me Daddy?” look on his face.
I scooped him up into my arms and held him tighter than I’ve ever held him.
He wasn’t crying.
Yet.
After what seemed like a minute (and was probably half a second) he started crying.
At first, just a sob. Then slowly the volume and intensity increased.
I could hear his crying echo off the valley walls from the hills miles to our north.
It was all I could do to not cry with him.
I just held him until he started to sob in between breaths, and then I pushed him back from my chest just a little bit, while I started to inspect him.
First his left left. Left ankle. Left foot. Left arm, left hand, left cheek. Nothing. Wow!
Then his right side. The side he landed on first. His right arm, shoulder, cheek, nose… All fine.
His right leg had a small, barely noticable abrasion on it, and his right ankle had a small (smaller than a dime) strawberry on it.
I sat him on my thigh while I tested his joints. All of them worked, and he wasn’t complaining about them as I made him move them back and forth.
Then I felt his head and there seemed to be no bumps or bruises.
He was pretty much done crying at this point… so I asked him “Do you want to get down and play?”
He said “down” perfectly (a first).
So, I put him down in the grass. He walked over to the big dirt pile, and started looking for rocks.
Episode forgotten. No collateral damage.
Later that night, as we put him to bed, Christine and I found a bump on the side of his head, but here, three days later, it’s gone.
Wednesday, May 7th, will forever go down in history for me as “The Day Grayson Went 50MPH on a Bobby Car and Lived to Tell Us All About It, But Couldn’t Yet Talk.”
What a day that was.
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