RANT & RAVE

My Big Fat Rant!

Does anyone ever read the Seattle Times on Sunday mornings?
My favorite section is the Rant and Rave. I usually find it quite entertaining. I hope to have my rant in the paper this Sunday. Here it is.

I took my kids (+2 extra) on an afternoon bike ride on Tuesday around the block. Shilo has just learned to ride a big trike and was so excited to ride so more. We put her helmet on and headed out. Our neighborhood isn't typically very busy, well on this fate full afternoon we headed to 172nd and 22nd, around the corner from us. There they have a very small strip of sidewalk that curves around a house that the kids enjoy riding on because they aren't on the street. Well I was pushing a stroller and Shilo was riding behind Chastin and Josh on their bikes, as they took the corner she lost control of the trike and couldn't get her feet back on the pedals, as she is gaining speed towards a very busy intersection I am screaming for her to tip over the bike. She is screaming so much by this point that I don't even think that she could hear me let alone think of what to do. So I let go of the stroller and take off down the hill after her, screaming for Chastin to get off his bike and catch her! Low and behold she goes right off the end of the sidewalk, down the kind of embankment there and into the intersection! By the time I caught up to her, she had flipped off the trike, head over heals with the trike landing on her head and chest. She is hysterical as you can imagine, and the whole thing seems to be playing in slow motion as it is happening. I'm yelling STOP all the way to her, I was just sure that she was going to be run over any second. I look up to see a mom in a minivan at the stop sign, I make desperate mom eye contact with her and she looks at me, with her three kids in the car, all watching and drives away!!!!! Now it didn't even stop there! I am swooping her up with tears running down my face in sheer terror, the boys were dragging her bike up the embankment and a GIANT truck is coming through the intersection as we are trying to get out of the way, and he actually swerves around us and drives on!!!!! As we sat in the grass with Shilo shaking and crying I couldn't get my mind around the fact that not a soul at that entire three way intersection even bothered to check on her or even wait for us to move, they watched the whole thing play out and drove on like nothing had even happened! I was so proud of the boys! They dropped their bikes and ran to her side, they cuddled her, asked to see if she was o.k and held her together. She is one lucky little girl. And so brave at that! After about 10 minutes of calm down time she actually wanted to ride her bike home, I have to admit that she recovered MUCH faster that her mother.
So I am going to sum this up into a much shorter, more blunt paragraph to share with the Seattle Times readers and maybe someone will take a moment to realize that we are all people, and that maybe, just maybe, it's o.k to be nice; to get involved.

In the end, Shilo had only minor scrapes on her chin, forehead, and elbows; a bloody lip, and a few bruises. Thank goodness that children are resilient.