A New Mode of Transportation...

Brock and Ryan's orthodontist has a great incentive program that rewards patients who take excellent care of their teeth and braces. At every appointment they can earn up to 3 tickets (for clean teeth, no broken brackets, and being on time) and enter a monthly drawing, in which one patient wins a prize valued at $150 (digital camera, iPod, Nintendo DS, or a gift certificate to the mall). In May, Brock was the lucky winner and chose the gift certificate. When he showed up to pick up his prize they gave him a check for $150 (they forgot to get a gift certificate from the mall.) So, for the past several months the money has been sitting safely in Brock's bank account.

That is until two days ago when Brock decided he wanted a Ripstick. Now, I am familiar with this perilous mode of transportation. I have seen kids operating it successfully; however, to me it looks fairly difficult and very awkward to ride. Therefore, when Brock announced that he wanted to buy one (which meant he would probably want to ride it) I had a flash back... to a similar mode of transportation called a scooter (only it had a handle bar.)

Here are the images associated with scooters that quickly flashed through my mind...

So, thanks to a $10 scooter (which cost us 50 times it's purchase price in medical bills), Brock's first accident occurred in April 2003, at the age of 5, when he shattered his front tooth (the root was extracted by the dentist and 3 yrs later the permanent tooth finally came in ) on the handle bar of the scooter after crashing in our unfinished basement. Then the following year, Brock (age 6) spent the entire summer wearing three different casts... BLACK, RED, and GREEN.

The broken bones started April 2004, when Brock broke his right arm the first time, scooting on the sidewalk in front of our house. The tiny front wheel got stuck in a sidewalk crack (I always knew those cracks were unlucky.) In June, a few weeks after the cast was removed, he re-broke the same arm going down the neighbor's drive way (it was very obvious he had broken it.) This time we had to take him to the Emergency Room, where they put him to sleep and reset the bone using an x-ray machine (cha-ching.) At the end of July, after more x-rays, an orthopedic specialist said the arm hadn't healed completely... so a third cast was installed. Wearing a cast for 4 months did not stop Brock from enjoying his summer activities. He still played t-ball and went swimming several times a week. However, by the time school started in late August, he was "cast free" and we were "scooter free." After the 3rd cast (3 strikes you're out rule) we gave three fairly new scooters to a young, poor, yet grateful door-to-door salesman (who happened to have 3 kids and fortunately didn't believe in jinxed scooters.)

Therefore, it was with much trepidation (and only after stalling for as many hours as "parently" possible) that I drove Brock to the store and allowed him to purchase a Ripstick. I am trying to be optimistic, that we will have better luck with this mode of transportation. Brock reports that he is getting "the hang" of it and can now turn corners. Of course I wouldn't know, because I have to close my eyes when he rides it.