Battle Wounds

This summer has been full of many days of playing outside and getting together with friends. We have done some "outings" and a couple of "vacations," but mainly we have stayed close to home. Some of our best friends live just around the corner and the kids like to have those kids come over to ride bikes in front of our house. One day Jonathan decided to just jump out in front of one of the boys who was riding his bike. I don't know what Jonathan expected to happen, but he was rather surprised that the bike didn't stop or change course in time to avoid hitting him. He got a handlebar to the face and ended up with his first ever black eye.
 

After calming him down and assuring the other little boy that Jonathan was really okay it was a good opportunity to talk about what happens when we jump out in front of moving objects. Thankfully it was only a kid on a bike and not a car. This was one of those situations where I was able to be grateful that it wasn't worse, but also frustrated with the illogical logic of a child. "If I jump out in front of this bike he will have to stop." Even though this happened back in June, Jonathan still is very cautious of others on their bikes and keeps a long way off from their possible paths. I had hoped that I could get him to learn to ride his bike this summer, but he sort of lost interest in it after this. I think next summer will be perfect for that and the accident will be enough of a distant memory to not scare him away.