Brady Goes Cruising

Brady's birthday was seven weeks ago and the present we got him was a Power Wheels Escalade.  I'd always wanted a Power Wheels growing up and never had one (Andy did), so it was something I wanted to give my son.  It was February when he received it, and since he didn't fully understand what it did, he had no problem not opening the extremely large box.  Andy was a different story.  Almost daily, he'd ask if he could put it together.  I said no every time because there was still snow on the ground.  If he put it together, Brady would want to play with it in the house and that simply wasn't an option.  I also knew we'd have a lot going on with Izzie expected only a few weeks after his birthday.  Andy continued to persist and even got sneaky, having guests who visited after Izzie was born ask if it could be opened.  The answer remained the same : no.

The week leading up to Easter the snow finally started to melt and it looked like there wasn't any more in the forecast (I spoke to soon on that one, we have a wintry mix in the forecast for Friday; it'll be mid-April for crying out loud).  We opened his playset that weekend and it was in the mid-50s so it was warm enough for him to go play.  The next weekend (last weekend) also had weather in the 50s and 60s, with no rain, so I decided it would be a good weekend to open up the Escalade.  I told Andy of my plans, but not Brady.

Friday night after dinner, I told Brady that his treat was getting to open his big car.  He immediately screamed, "Escalade!"  He had gone from calling it a car to an Escalade because Andy has been chanting about it for the last seven weeks (I swear he has Tourette's).  We knew it had to at least be opened the night before because the battery needed a long time to charge.  I thought it was six hours and would be ready by morning, but turned out it was 18 hours!  That meant, he'd have to wait until after nap to ride.  The spent several hours that night putting the Escalade together.  There was a lot of frustration and yelling on Andy's part because Brady wanted to help and was touching just about everything.  Sometimes it's hard to remember he's only three.  I tried explaining that he's a little boy and overly excited.  Andy said it took him probably an hour longer to put it together with Brady there, but in the end, they made a memory.

 Fresh out of the box.

Trying to put on the grill.

An aerial view.

Gotta check the undercarriage.

Giving little sister a ride (don't worry, the battery wasn't in it yet).

We joke that Izzie is like a drunk college girl.  She always has puke in her hair and right before she got out of Brady's car she puked in that too.

Practicing his moves for when he goes crusin' for chicks.

Brady was so excited he hardly napped.  Around 6PM Andy took him out.  It took him a few minutes to get the hang of turning and reverse, but he got pretty good. We kept it on the safety setting of 2.5MPH until he gets a little better (full speed is 5MPH).

My favorite part is the license plate.  We had no idea it would say Detroit.  Now all three of us have Michigan plates (all vanity too).