March 27: Choices and Consequences (toddler edition)

Don’t be deceived by this balmy image of our ride home. The weather finally took a swing back to normal today, skipping from June temperatures through May and April and into a typical early March. After the relative ease of dressing for bike rides the last few weeks, when I was giving more thought to whether I’d be cool enough than whether Alex would be warm enough, today was an unpleasant shock.

Alex is back on his mitten strike (after one glorious week when he couldn’t stand NOT to wear his mittens) and was also anti-blankie for the first third of the ride, so he really suffered. His hands were red and icy to the touch when he finally gave in and accepted having a blanket tucked around his legs and hands.

These days, the challenge of dressing Alex for cold bike rides comes from the conflict between two major cognitive milestones: the need for bodily autonomy versus a growing understanding of logical consequences. On the one hand, he’s coming to appreciate the virtues of, say, wearing sunglasses on a bright day to keep sunlight out of his eyes. On the other hand, he resists wearing anything that he hasn’t chosen himself because he’s so desperate to be in charge of his own body and everything that happens to it.

Thus we end up in situations like this morning’s, where I have to let him suffer the consequences of his choices until he finally gives in. He never actually admitted to being cold, but his stony, glum manner today was a marked contrast to his excited chatter on warmer bike rides.

I arrived at daycare with a red-cheeked and snotty kid:

On the plus side, it was much warmer on the way home. We exercised one of the privileges of family cycling and made frequent stops to pick dandelion seed heads on the roadside. Brookland’s sidewalks and tree boxes are now safe from the fluffy menace!

High: 56 Low: 34

Alex wore: Bogs boots, flannel overalls, long-sleeve shirt, puffy coat, cashmere scarf, winter helmet.

Clothing notes: NOTE ABSENCE OF MITTENS. Little dude definitely should have been wearing mittens, and probably another layer on his top half as well. Hands were icy, legs were just a little cool after 45 minutes of biking.