Raising kids in Brooklyn presents many novelties for a born suburbanite like myself. I am still a bit amazed at the idea of simply walking to Elliot’s school. His Pre-K was a single block away, almost too close. By comparison, we are on the furthest corner opposite his elementary school, making it a whole ten minutes walk from our apartment. Both schools are, in a very real sense, simply a part of our neighborhood.
The catch, naturally, is that Elliot must actually walk for us to get there, or anywhere we might wish to go. As a rule we don’t take him in the stroller; that is reserved for his younger brother, who cannot reliably do such distances yet. We have no elevator to our apartment, so a big two-seater stroller would be something of a logistical burden to juggle with getting the kids down the stairs—our smaller one is hard enough as it is. As a result, our little rising first grader has leverage, something he rarely fails to notice. We need his cooperation to get the show on the road, and rare is the day when he is feeling cooperative.
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