Hurry!

I have been able to walk my two grandson's to school a few times in the past few weeks. I walk them to school and then go on a long walk through the beautiful fields.  The older one goes out the door and is on his way. He has plans to get there and get a kick ball to play with before school. He wants to be sure they are not all gone. Sometimes they like to ride their scooters but today I said no. There were to many very tempting puddles to splash through.  They both reassured me they would miss all of them but they didn't know that I have experience in the little boy and wheels department and NO little boy can resist a great big puddle. So off we went. The younger one and I usually walk together. I will walk a little and stop and wait for him to catch up. He loves school and has no reason to drag behind so I constantly tell him to hurry. He would come running and off we would go again, and again, and again. I decided that today I would walk with him and see what was slowing him down so much. We headed out and the first thing that happened is we got about 2 drops of light rain on us. He had a big concern until I told him that if it really started to rain we could put his backpack on top of his head like an umbrella.  Off we go and I turn to look for him because he is already behind and he has already adjusted his backpack/umbrella on his head.  He had kept the arms in the straps and pulled the backpack up on his head. "Look it works great Granny." We made it past about 3 houses and he had to walk on the low retaining wall running along the sidewalk. Then a little more and we hear a big "thwack" as we startle a few bird and one flys into a window. We have to look for it to see if it is okay. Moving forward again.  Then I hear, "look at those cool snails." I have to admit they were pretty cool. They were tiny and had a long tapered shell. I had never seen that kind before. Next the question was, "can I smash them." No I told him other people might want to see how cool they are. Then a climb on a big rock and jumping down. Moving again. Next he stops and gazes into an open garage. He keeps saying something about a shiny Mongoose.  He really wants one of those. I realized that he was talking about a BMX bicycle that he has admired many times as we have walked by.  Slowly moving as he continues to try to spot the bike in the garage.  Then we hear honk, honk, honk. A flock of Canadian geese fly right over us in perfect formation.  They were low and slow. We had to stand and watch them until they were out of sight. As we continue walking we have to stop and look at all the different dogs that are looking out of their side gates at us. I counted about  7. He is very good to always stay on the sidewalk and not go into yards so just stands in the middle of the sidewalk and looks. Then we came to a house that must have a bunch of boys that like to do tricks on their bikes. There was an assortment of boards, bricks, and other boy type building materials in the yard and on the sidewalk. There was a piece of board propped  against the curb to make a small ramp. Of course he had to go up and down that several times. Then he found a piece of pipe that was flat on one side that  he could make a ramp to walk  down and now a ramp to walk up. Cool...  We are almost there. Off he runs because by now big brother has got a kick ball and would be out playing with their friends on the field. He didn't want to miss that. I continue walking  and thought of all the "cool" things we got to see. I don't know if he would have made it to school on time without a little prodding along but he sure had an adventure on the way.  Maybe we all need to quit saying "hurry" and slow down just a little and look for an injured bird, cool snails, Canadian geese, Mongoose BMX bikes, neighbors dogs, walls to climb, rocks to jump off, and ramps to build. And of course we need to all be sure to wear our backpack/umbrella!!!!!