In direct opposition to his guardian's request, the little boy, who looked to be about three years old, kept pushing his stroller, away from said guardian, and across the grassy knoll before stepping down onto the concrete sidewalk.
It's possible he could have been ignoring his guardian. But an argument could also be made that he was just so focused on his adventure with the stroller, and was therefore too caught up to even register the request. There is a third possibility: that the truth of the matter was a combination of both scenarios. And the more I watched him, the more I leaned towards this third possibility.
This was the second time I had noticed them. The first time was about 15 minutes earlier when the guardian "hid" behind a tree, and encouraged the little boy to find him. Even then, the little boy's fondness for the stroller was apparent as he insisted on pushing it over to his guardian and, still pushing, proceeded to follow his guardian's movements around the tree.
Now that the boy found himself off the grass and about 10 feet away from his guardian, he decided he was ready to head back. Slowly maneuvering the stroller around, moving his feet in the slightly unsteady march young children often engage in when acclimating to walking, he once again pushed the stroller but this time, it wouldn't budge. As he was now closer in proximity to me, I could clearly see his look of surprise, quickly replaced by that of confusion. What he hadn't figured out yet was that the area he needed to get back to, now required a step up.
I knew his guardian was sitting in the grass, watching, but my first instinct was to help the little boy. I almost did. But then I decided to wait, rationalizing his guardian was being attentive, and that, if necessary, the boy would call for assistance-- if not in words, then at the very least, via sounds or gestures of distress.
So, I watched.
After a few tries at pushing and meeting with the same results, he leaned on the handles, exerting enough pressure to lift the front wheels of the stroller to clear the drop separating the sidewalk from the grassy knoll. And with that hurdle (or in this case, brick) cleared, he was able to push the rest of the stroller up, step up as well, and once again find himself firmly back on the grassy terrain.
I was so happy for him I could have cheered out loud! But I didn't. I'm almost certain though that I had a big smile on my face-- so proud of him and his accomplishment.
And I was also happy I had given him the chance to work it out without quickly rushing in to fix it -- especially since he had never expressed a need for help in the first place.
Thanks for the lesson, stroller pushing kid 😉🙂
---- seen at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.