Run Jimmy Run!

One of our favorite things to do each day is go outside into the front yard and wait for Jimmy to arrive home from school via the bus.  It is so fun to see him hop off the bus and then run home.  There used to be this little neighbor boy that he would race each day.  Jimmy would be on one side of the street, and the little neighborhood boy, who also rode the same bus would be running as fast as he could on the other side of the street.  They'd be running as fast as their little legs would take them while stealing sideward glances at one another to see who was beating the other.  I always got such a chuckle out of it.  Jimmy loves to run, and he would usually beat this little boy.

After he had his bone graft in October, I was worried about him running and falling and had told him it was okay to start walking home from the bus stop, instead of running.  I still remember the first day he went back to school and upon jumping off the bus, he began to run in attempts to race this little boy.  I was so nervous he was going to hurt himself!  His hip was still visibly sore from the bone graft and he ran with quite a limp.  Despite me saying "Jimmy!  Slow down!", he ran all the way to our driveway and wasn't even phased with how far behind he had come out from the other little boy- he was so proud of himself for still being able to run despite his sore hip!  I didn't know what to think.  I was so glad to see him able to use his hip so well, but still found myself fretting he was going to do a face plant during this daily race.  The sight of Jimmy running with his limp actually reminded me of this little Forrest Gump clip (minus the meany kids, we don't really have any round these parts):

The little boy moved away a couple months ago, so now Jimmy only sometimes runs.  He often walks and I'll sometimes see him stop and pick up a worm, or study a crack in the sidewalk.  Sometimes Johnny will run and meet his brother half way.

Often while we are waiting for Jimmy's daily homecoming, we play on the driveway or in the grass if it is nice weather.  The other day Alice was crawling around and I got out the camera.  We found a dandelion globe and she got such a kick out of it.  I let her hold it and was trying to teach her how to blow it.  I don't know what I was thinking- she puts everything in her mouth.  So in went the dandelion globe too.

I actually googled Dandelion seeds just to make sure I hadn't done anything careless by letting her play with it and found out that the entire plant is indeed edible, and came across this precious little video.  Isn't Clara adorable?

After finally losing interest in the now pretty much fully consumed dandelion globe, Alice began to crawl around the driveway, chasing her shadow.
  

Johnny loved playing "guard" and making sure she didn't crawl away!  He even gave her some walking lessons.

Soon Jimmy arrived home from school.  He had earned a toy from the "paw pass store" at school for having green stars each day for the entire week, and so he had picked out some bubbles and proudly showed them to us upon arriving home.

Alice fearlessly let him blow bubbles in her face.