I happened to be sitting on my couch with an afternoon cup of tea right at ‘after school time’ recently. A little movement caught my eye out the window and I looked up from my book to see a young boy intently holding a remote control as he prodded a small toy car down the lane.
My mom-spidey senses went up a bit when I realized he was alone out there in the big world, but on second glance I could see he was about seven or eight – the age where you’re meant to broaden their borders a bit as they explore their world. Knowing the quiet lane is not a through-street so he would also be safe from cars rushing past, I quieted all my inner alarms and settled in to watch his progress.
He was obviously just getting to know this new toy – perhaps it was a present from Christmas. The little remote car skidded and flipped a few times, which made him laugh. But before long he began to master the controls and had the car traversing up and down snowbanks, jumping a few stones and meandering from side to side as he made his way ever-so-slowly forward. The little car jumped the curb and the child followed, stopping to pick up a few twigs that had fallen from a tree along the boulevard. They soon became the ramp for a little jump that kept the car in motion for several minutes as it climbed the makeshift rise to make different degrees of airtime.
After a time, the little car was back on the road when a round drain cover caught the boy’s attention. He lowered himself down to try and peer inside, and spent considerable time dropping little pebbles down. Soon his little car was making leaps across that drain, until they were finally off to the righthand side of my vision and then finally out of sight. The span that I watched is probably about 60 feet in total, but it took him 45 minutes to cross, what with all the things he was learning and interacting with.
When kids slow down to push various things along snowbanks in the winter, or study the trail of ants in the summer, they are doing really important work. This made me feel so happy and, as I sipped my tea, I thought of how fortunate this boy was that a toy had been placed into his hands instead of an iPhone.