Walking

I try to go walking at least 3 times a week in my neighborhood with my 2 little girls and the baby I take care of.  It is an interesting experience.  I take a double stroller (you know, one of those really long ones that is totally hard to control) and the baby and one of my kids ride while the other kid is usually dragging beside or behind the stroller… hanging on for dear life.  You may wonder why my 4 and 6 year old get to take turns riding instead of walking the whole way.  I will tell you.  I am walking for exercise, not just to observe God’s beauty (if I wanted to do that I could do it from the comfort of my own couch by watching “Planet Earth”), so I’m walking at a quick pace.  My kids have a hard time keeping up… thus the need to “hang on.”  I’m literally dragging them about half the time.  My 4 year old will actually lift up her feet and swing from the handle.  I get quite a work out with this crew… the “walk” is a killer for my arms, too (and my patience).  My 4 year old displays more energy in my house every day than it would take to run 3 marathons in a row… but that doesn’t stop her from moping and walking so slowly I risk losing sight of her.  My 6 year old does pretty well but she tires out from her running to keep up before I’m done with my walk.  In her defense she does have mild CP and sensory integration disorder, which tire her out more easily that the average 6 year old kid.  (The muscles in her calf are always so tight I guess she gets a work out just sitting there).  The other thing that makes it more interesting than an average walk in a neighborhood is that I live in this neighborhood where the sidewalks are like mini roller coasters.  The cracks and the slanted sidewalks really add a whole different work out experience… I’m working hard just trying to keep the stroller from tipping over.  I have to put my foot on the back of the stroller basket and give a good push to get the front wheels to go over some of the huge cracks.  My kids all think it’s a game cuz as I’m ramming them into these huge raised cracks and nearly knocking them out of the stroller, I’m saying “bump! bump!”  and what kid doesn’t want to play a game called “bump bump”?   One of the fun games my kids play while we are on our walk is to find the biggest (dead) leaf.  Today my 4 year old found a huge one...much bigger than yesterday’s leaf.  It was so big we could have gotten quite a wind going if we were using it as a fan.  The leaf fan was not meant to be, however, as the leaf met its end on our walk home.  The 4 year old was running at a nice pace.... I was happy because I was in one of those motivated moods when it came to exercise today.  But then the 6 year old (riding comfortably in the stroller) noticed at some point that the leaf was no longer there… the 4 year old was running holding a stem… the leaf had been separated from it’s stem-host and met its doom somewhere along our path.  This revelation did not meet well with the 4 year old. Can you picture having to go back and find this large leaf??? Well, I could too, so I nipped it in the bud and just said that the leaf blew off the stem.. oh well, it was just a leaf, let’s keep going… yada yada yada…. And the 4 year olds nice pace completely halted.  The rest of the walk home was brutal.  Let me just say an energetic 4 year old can put as much energy into walking slowly with a frown as she can walking quickly to keep up……. but we did make it home, and the sad kid got better when it was time to ride bikes in the driveway………It’s a process