Car Free Without Being a Douche, Part 2

Big Kid Problems.

If you have a kid at the top of the growth charts, you know all about this. Nothing fits. If it does, it doesn't fit for long. The tall one was 25lbs at 6 months. So by the time it was developmentally appropriate to use something like a Jumperoo Neglectomatic, he was over the weight limit. I never knew the joy of contained baby fun after 6 months. It was like living with a diapered Godzilla.

It's not just the jumperoos though. Biking was where we felt this the most. When he was about 15 months, I got an iBert baby seat. It has one of the higher weight limits for a front loading seat at 38lbs. My kid loved it. We went on long 20 and 30 km bike rides along the seawall, though the park, everywhere really. That lasted one summer. By the time the next summer rolled around, he was over the weight limit. The rear mounted seats at the time only went a few lbs heavier than that, and he was right at the edge. Because he was a young two and a half, none of the solutions (trail a bikes, etc) which met the weight criteria were developmentally appropriate. Family biking was at an end until he could keep up on his own.

ENTER THE CARGO BIKE

Shortly before the car smashing debacle, I saw what I now know to be a Bakfiet cruising around one day. I did a bit of Googling, and dismissed the notion given how expensive they were. After the car was smashed though, I started doing more research into cargo bikes in general. I discovered the wonderful world of electric pedal assists, longtails, midtails, basket bikes. I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to take the plunge, so I did two things that I recommend anyone contemplating this do. First, I rented an electric bike for a week. I felt I would be a little weirded out by electric, and I wanted to see how functional it actually was.

Answer? VERY. I would love to bike to work, but it's about 10k each way, which isn't bad, but there are several hills, and not always a chance to shower. I'm also sometimes coming home at 1 in the morning. None of these were a problem with an electric bike. I was still pedaling, but the hills disappeared, my commute was faster, and I still smelled civilized. It was fantastic.

The second thing I did was a weekend trip to Portland (with the body shop loaner car.) I tried out a basket bike (if I had an unlimited budget, I would get one. So much fun), a Yuba Mundo, and an Xtracycle. While they advertise themselves as all being able to carry a couple hundred pounds of offspring, I wanted to see if my kid could handle it. He totally could.

I can't explain how happy having this option makes me. My son outgrew being a bike passenger, but he doesn't understand why. When I try to explain that he's over the weight limit, it's not something he can understand at this point. He always wants to go on bikes, and is constantly trying to climb on mine.

After much debate and weighing the pros and cons (financial and otherwise!), I decided on the Pedego Stretch. My car was finished at the body shop, I sold it and walked into the bike shop and purchased the first Stretch to be sold in Canada.

Unfortunately, the tall one was at his dad's for the weekend, and the Yepp Maxi childseat I ordered for the short one was held up in customs. So fancy new bike, and I was unable to ride it anywhere for the first few days.

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I got sidetracked and didn't get past this and publish. It's now been almost a month, and the kids and I LOVE commuting via bike. I'll do an updated post.

Car Free Without Being a Douche, Part 1

You are two parents. You are the parent that you are going to be before you have kids and know everything there is about kids, then there is the parent you become after you have kids and realize you don't know shit. Part of this is realizing the importance of leading by example. What do your everyday choices say to your kids? About the importance of community or environment?

One aspect where this has come into play is with transportation. I've always loved cars, but with kids there aren't many any practical options which are fun to drive. Resigning myself to my fate, I got rid of the kicking rad 6 speed and purchased a Ford Flex the month after the short one was born. Yes, it did the job. It carried my children safely from point A to point B (And C, D, E, F...),with a minimum of fuss. It just wasn't any fun. I was bored, and when it feels like you're constantly taking the kids places, you realize how much of their time is just sitting in the car. Some of that is unavoidable, but it really felt like wasted time. All of this time was spent focusing on my kids' growth and development, but then so much time is just spent sitting there.

Then it hit me. Literally - on the way back from a run at the beach with the short one and the dog, we were smashed into by a Japanese compact. Everyone was fine, but my car was barely repairable, which meant I spent two and a half months without a car. I was allowed a loaner car, but I was curious to see, given this opportunity, how much I would actually use one.

The first step was to get a bus pass and start taking transit to do the preschool drop off. The biggest issue here was the location of where we were renting. Because it's a ridiculously wealthy area on the way to the university (lot price starts at 2 million, and that's for a teardown - I'm not ridiculously wealthy, we were renting one of those houses waiting to be torn down), you don't get a lot of transit users. There are some semi regular buses, but they're non-existent on the weekends and in the summer. This was a short term problem since we were planning on moving anyway.

What was interesting about taking the bus is how educational it is for a kid in an urban setting. There's the social aspect of greeting the driver and sitting next to other people and kids on the bus. You can't dawdle, because otherwise the bus just gets going. Pulling the cord for your stop means kids start to learn a bit more about their neighborhood, where they live, and where they go. Sitting in a car just doesn't require any sort of attention. He's knows generally where we're going based on what streets I turn down, but there's no participation. He now knows the skytrain stations, and which ones are where we catch the bus, which one is his preschool, and most importantly, which one has a smoothie stand.

It's also just more enjoyable for him. He loves trains and buses. One of our rewards is being able to watch skytrain videos (yes, they exist.) Trains are practically a diagnostic criteria for autism. He was never into Thomas the Train all that much, but actual trains and public transit have always held a certain fascination. It's nice being able to have a keen interest of his translate into something that could be a useful skill for him.

The public transit experiment has been a success. We've recently (as of 3 weeks ago), moved into a new house which is located right next to a major transit intersection which means it's more convenient than before.

The second part of the experiment? Biking. To be continued, with the subtitle "Big Kid Problems."