Safety first, cool second

This story made me mad, first at motorists because they usually treat cyclists like they don't belong on the road, then at cyclists who don't wear helmets.

I used to avoid wearing a bike helmet, even though I'd gotten badly hurt in a bike accident as a kid. But one day I realized (or M-N convinced me, it's fuzzy) that it's stupid to ride without a helmet. Ask Ben Roethlisberger, or don't because he's not all there.

All this brings me to the boy. We were shopping on Saturday, not intending in any way to do this, when we ended up buy a safety harness like the one pictured here. There are clever new harnesses (see the debate here), but the store we were at didn't have those, so we got the one that looks like a leash (because it is).

Why? Well, see, the thing is, we live in a city. We spend a lot of time on sidewalks, next to busy street, with stupid people. People like those who would hit a biker when he's down then drive off. Those people are everywhere. And we've been carting to boy around in the stroller, but he can walk well now, so we want to give him some freedom. But a wise Quaker once told us that some babies learn to walk early, before they have judgment, while others walk late, but develop awareness of safe and imminent crushing death to some degree. Ours is the former.

He's been on his feet since about the second trimester. So if this harness allows him to practice his walking with jumping in front of a streetcar, then I'm cool with it. I practiced with it in front of our apartment yesterday while M-N knitted on the step. I decided it looked silly took it off, and he immediately fell down a manhole.

Ok, no, but he walked up the street and would have stepped right into traffic if I hadn't picked him up. So I pointed him down the street, and he chased a piece of paper and would've gone diving under a parked car if I hadn't swooped him up. So we tried out the leash again, and there was no more almost dying. So it'll get him out of stroller on some walks, which is good. It's not cool, but hey, Ben Roethlisberger isn't cool. He broke his head.