Great investment...

Buying scooters for the kids for their birthdays last year was a great idea. It cuts the travel time to/from school by at least half and they are small enough that I can fold them up and stick them in the basket under the pram to bring home with me (so don't have to worry about misuse or theft at school). So although it was a bit of an expensive outlay initially (we wanted to make sure we got good quality ones that would last and we could replace parts if they wore out), because I think that they are more a 'mode of transport' for the kids instead of just being a recreational 'toy', I definitely think the cost was worth it. It means that I'm more motivated to walk to/from school (as it doesn't take too big a chunk of time and the kids are happy speeding along) and with the cost of petrol here at the moment (I paid 209.3cent/litre yesterday), the more driving we replace with walking/scootering, the easier it will be on our budget!

I must admit when we first started using the scooter for transport, it was a slightly painful exercise for a while, as the kids had to learn how steer, balance and scooter more efficiently. There is also a certain amount of 'scootering fitness' that they had to develop (and are still developing a bit), as it is not the same physical action as walking or riding (the quads of the leg on the scooter have a constant load and the 'scootering leg' has to get use to a fair amount of push-lift-repeat action). But it got better fairly quickly and now I almost have to break out into a jog with the pram to keep them in sight (when they are in the mood to go extra fast)!

A couple of notes about our particular situation (in case you are considering the scooter as 'mode of transport option): we live 1.2km from school; the route we take is fairly flat - only a couple of very slight up/down slopes; we only walk to school 1-2 mornings a week and home from school 4-5 mornings a week (Ben usually chooses to walk instead of scooter home).