His 3 wheel scooter and imaginary phone conversations

After about 6 months of contemplating, I finally bought him a three-wheel scooter. He's been happily riding it round and round the house.

It's taken me that long because I was keeping an eye out for cheaper versions of it at hypermarkets, and also because we were too busy to make a trip to the shop together. I needed to go together with him because I need to check if the height and the width of the foot rest were suitable for him.

When I finally saw it advertised at Tesco's, I couldn't find it on the shelves. So more waiting, and not having the time to get to the shop.

Now that it's the school holidays, we're taking things easy and have been heading to the malls rather often. There is currently a slight discount on it at Toys R Us, so I bought it.

I was thinking of a scooter because I wanted him to work on his balance, but I noticed that it's been good for more than that. He gets a good work out on various muscles too - his core mucles, his arms, his legs. His reflexes has to be quick. Co-ordination is required of both legs and arms. He has to learn to push down on his legs (he still tip toes sometimes).

Aside from the physical benefits, he's using his imagination too! He has kept a few small containers (he scoured my box of fine motor activity for it) in the little bag strapped to the handle bars. Once in a while, he'll stop the scooter, pick up a small metal container, place it to his ears and pretend it's a mobile phone! It's so amusing to see him at it!

His conversations go something like this:

"Hello?...Yes... Hi so and so (it's sometimes Ah Kong, Ah Ma, my sister, my brother, his friend, his cousins)...hmmm....ah-huh....mmm...yeah...ahhh...yup...yup...yup...ok, bye"

Sometimes he hands the phone to me and tells me the person on the other side wants to talk to me. So I humour him and continue the conversation, making it as real as possible, using words rather than just his uhhms and yups. So I ask if the person has had lunch/dinner, how's the person doing, are they going anywhere this school holidays, when are they coming to visit etc. By doing so, I hope it builds his imagination, social skills, and speech.

Btw, the scooter is available at Toys R Us, for RM89.95 after RM10 off (other models sell for up to RM250). The height of the handle bar is adjustable. The base of the foot rest lights up. I've not had him test it on grass or other outdoor terrain, but I've no problems with the tyre grip on indoor tiled floors. Only gripe with it is that the assembly instructions omitted mention of two small important parts (white tubes to be inserted to the back wheel's axle) so I suggest that you have the staff assemble it for you instead of doing it yourself (as I learnt the hard way).