Mario Kart

Have any of you ever played Mario Kart? We play it on occasion at our house and unfortunately I am awful at the whole game. They have this cute little trail they want you to follow so you press whatever button it is that makes you go and you take off full speed ahead. The problem is this lovely little game expects you to steer while you speed down the path, which is impossible (for me). As I attempt to steer I always over correct and swerve back and forth across random grass hills & into trees or cows or whatever is around the track. In the other races that aren’t so kind to give you nice grassy hills to drive around in there are horrible cliffs everywhere you look and if you can’t stay on the path you plummet off the cliff (repeatedly). The game kindly provides a service that picks you up after plummeting and puts you back in your place on the track. This was a genius move by the makers of this game because who would want to play if they drove off a cliff, plummeting to their death and the game was over. The invincible feeling that video games gives you must be one of the main attractions to them. 
In my attempt to drive around the track I frequently get cornered by a wall or something and no matter how hard I push the go button I don’t go anywhere. I eventually figure out how to turn around and then I start charging full speed ahead again (after all, I’ve had a lovely scenic trip that most others have missed but I’m officially in last place and more than likely lapped by most people.) While charging full speed ahead this annoying little arrow thing pops up on the screen repeatedly flashing at me, but as you know I’m in last place and have ground to cover so I politely ignore it. After a few minutes of driving things start to look vaguely familiar and I get excited thinking I’ve finally finish my first lap. To add to my excitement I start to see other cars. The excited feeling only lasts for a moment when I finally realize I’m going the wrong direction and the cars are barreling towards me and I’m inevitably going to get hit. Luckily there are several positive aspects of this situation. 1- When you get hit there is a good possibility it might help you turn the darn car around. 2- When the other super fast cars hit you they will also be slowing down and loosing ground in this hopeless race.
As you head around the track they also give you these box prize things to try to hit as you go. I personally feel this is a bit rude of them, I mean its hard enough to just stay going in a straight line and going the direction  you’re supposed to be going without worrying about collecting prizes. Regardless of how I feel about it, I am still compelled to try to hit the prizes, (which often leads to either getting stuck in a wall or plummeting off a cliff but so does everything else). Eventually you make it all the way around the track and back to where you started and what do you do? You start again on lap 2 repeating the whole messy spectacle of trying to navigate the track.
So you’re probably wondering why I’m going into such great detail about a silly video game that we play a couple times a year at the most. I’ll explain. Recently we’ve starting going on walks again since the lovely spring weather has returned and we’ve started letting Tyson walk instead of ride in the stroller during these evening walks. I figure he can use the exercise and maybe if he burns off enough energy he will willingly come inside when we get home and be tired enough to go to be at bedtime. We have a cute little path leading from our house around an oddly shaped block and back home (which reminds me of a Mario Kart trail.) Walking with Tyson is fascinating, slow, and a bit like the Mario Kart experience described above.
Tyson never walks, he RUNS, full speed ahead, arms flapping, legs kicking, and giggling the whole way. He loves the freedom of being able to run around the block with mom and dad in tow without having to be confined to a stroller. With the charging full speed ahead he doesn’t go for a straight line or even attempt to stay on the sidewalk. He wanders off into literally every yard and driveway we pass by. Sometimes he goes and looks at the cars or the light poles. Sometimes he finds rocks to pick up and sometimes he stops to talk to the dogs in the yards. The best though is when he finds nothing particularly exciting in the yard so he looks up and realizes (as if it is the very first time he has ever seen it) that there is SKY! Its amazing and blue and beautiful! He keeps pointing, staring in awe and saying “Wow…” At first when he did this I kept looking around expecting to see something, a bird, an airplane, heck by as amazed as he was I was half excepting to see a UFO. As I stared up to the empty sky above and saw nothing but endless blue with an occasional wispy cloud I realized that was what was so amazing. It wasn’t something in the sky it was just the sky, and it was phenomenal.
As also happens in Mario Kart occasionally Tyson will run off the path into the road (or off the side of a cliff if you’re in Mario Kart) and Dad or in yesterday’s case Uncle Brad will kindly pick him back up and put him back on the path he should be on (just like the magical little thing does for you in Mario Kart!) Unfortunately, unlike in Mario Kart we are not invincible and roads are dangerous so we try to avoid them as much as possible. Luckily Tyson is pretty good about not going out in the road most of the time unless he decides that the perfect rock is out in the road and he feels that he MUST go get it. The rocks on these walks are like the prizes on Mario Kart. He loves them, he can’t get enough of them and he is compelled to stop whatever he is doing, even slow down the running to pick up the perfect rocks. This is often the part where Tyson gets turned around and takes off full speed ahead the wrong direction, luckily with some gentle coaxing he turns around and comes with us.
Equally as fascinating as the sky above are the bugs below. Spotting a bug or searching for a bug is kind of like the part of Mario Kart where you get stuck in a wall and can’t move. Everything stops while you are looking at the bugs. You can’t just squat down and look at them from a reasonable distance; you have to lie down all the way on the ground with your face less than an inch away from the cement to truly observe the bug. These dramatic pit stops are not saved only for rare and spectacular bugs, in fact this is the enthusiasm with which Tyson greets every single ant he sees crawling across the sidewalk.
Slowly but surely we make the full loop while exploring fire hydrants, cars, fences, chains, bugs, rocks, sticks, sky, and many other things. Incase you haven’t been on a walk with a toddler lately, all of these things are truly amazing and deserve the excited exploration they receive, just ask Tyson. We wave at anyone driving or walking by and Tyson stops and talks to anyone out in their yard as we walk past. (He must have gotten this from his Grandpa because he sure didn’t get that part from me.)
We finally finish our loop. We have swerved off in every direction except the one the path expects us to follow, we have been saved from plummeting (or the road) and gently placed back on the path, we have gotten road blocked by ants, we have ran half the race the wrong direction, and we have collected LOTS of rock prizes. So what does Tyson want to do now? That’s right; he wants to go for another lap.