I made a stupid parenting mistake tonight. I'd like to tell you all about it so that you all can laugh at me and feel better about yourselves. (What? You don't do that? I thought that's what we all did. No?)
Anyway.
While Matt was gone this past weekend with the older kids, I took Roo to the park with me to ride her bike while I ran laps. It worked great. I ran, she rode. I got my workout in, she tired herself out. I watched Breaking Bad, she went to bed early. Everything was peachy.
So, tonight, Matt left to watch a colleague receive an award and I was stuck home with the kids thinking about how I wanted to get a run in. I admit, I could've just made my life simple and asked the teenager to watch them while I left for 40 minutes. But, no. My brain is apparently not doing smart today. Instead, I thought to myself, "Why not take all the littles? Should be easy enough." So I loaded two bikes into the back of the van (PG decided to run with me), and took off to the park.
(In case there is anyone reading who still is wondering where my mistake lies, let me spell it out for you: what is easy with one child is rarely easy with three. I should have known that. I had no business going around acting like an optimistic rookie parent when we all know that I'm more like a weathered old veteran.)
Here's what happened at the park: J took off within 5 minutes of us starting, despite my warning that he needed to stay within eye sight. Roo ran her bike into a parked car's fender with the owners sitting inside and scratched it up. I had to exchange insurance information, but couldn't run back to my car without first finding J. So, I found J and read him the riot act, which didn't seem to have much effect on him, but I'm pretty sure I scared the pants off the man jogging behind me. Then, I had to drag all 3 kids back to the car so that I could rummage, in the dark, through the glove compartment to find my insurance. And J, who was all sulky because I had gotten angry at him, declared that he didn't want to ride his bike anymore, so I wrestled his bike back into the van before heading back over to exchange insurance information with the nice lady who owned the car that Roo scratched up.
That complete, we all set out again (WHY didn't I just go home then, I don't know. Like I said, my brain is not doing smart today.) I believe it was when we were jogging past the skatepark, that a date beetle made it it's business to fly directly into my head. And that, my friends, is where I had the pleasure of freaking out and furiously slapping at my hair in front of a bunch of adolescent bikers and skaters.
That was the first lap.
Luckily, laps two and three were relatively uneventful (save for J jumping off some bleachers and scraping his elbow) and I was able to pass the time mentally composing this post without having to yell at anyone, soothe anyone, extricate bugs out of my hair, or take care of legal matters.
That felt like success. So we did what all healthy families who exercise together do: we went out and got dessert. Cheesecake, to be precise. I'm stuffing my face with it right now. Go ahead. Try to make me feel bad about it.
I dare you.
Anyway.
While Matt was gone this past weekend with the older kids, I took Roo to the park with me to ride her bike while I ran laps. It worked great. I ran, she rode. I got my workout in, she tired herself out. I watched Breaking Bad, she went to bed early. Everything was peachy.
So, tonight, Matt left to watch a colleague receive an award and I was stuck home with the kids thinking about how I wanted to get a run in. I admit, I could've just made my life simple and asked the teenager to watch them while I left for 40 minutes. But, no. My brain is apparently not doing smart today. Instead, I thought to myself, "Why not take all the littles? Should be easy enough." So I loaded two bikes into the back of the van (PG decided to run with me), and took off to the park.
(In case there is anyone reading who still is wondering where my mistake lies, let me spell it out for you: what is easy with one child is rarely easy with three. I should have known that. I had no business going around acting like an optimistic rookie parent when we all know that I'm more like a weathered old veteran.)
Here's what happened at the park: J took off within 5 minutes of us starting, despite my warning that he needed to stay within eye sight. Roo ran her bike into a parked car's fender with the owners sitting inside and scratched it up. I had to exchange insurance information, but couldn't run back to my car without first finding J. So, I found J and read him the riot act, which didn't seem to have much effect on him, but I'm pretty sure I scared the pants off the man jogging behind me. Then, I had to drag all 3 kids back to the car so that I could rummage, in the dark, through the glove compartment to find my insurance. And J, who was all sulky because I had gotten angry at him, declared that he didn't want to ride his bike anymore, so I wrestled his bike back into the van before heading back over to exchange insurance information with the nice lady who owned the car that Roo scratched up.
That complete, we all set out again (WHY didn't I just go home then, I don't know. Like I said, my brain is not doing smart today.) I believe it was when we were jogging past the skatepark, that a date beetle made it it's business to fly directly into my head. And that, my friends, is where I had the pleasure of freaking out and furiously slapping at my hair in front of a bunch of adolescent bikers and skaters.
That was the first lap.
Luckily, laps two and three were relatively uneventful (save for J jumping off some bleachers and scraping his elbow) and I was able to pass the time mentally composing this post without having to yell at anyone, soothe anyone, extricate bugs out of my hair, or take care of legal matters.
That felt like success. So we did what all healthy families who exercise together do: we went out and got dessert. Cheesecake, to be precise. I'm stuffing my face with it right now. Go ahead. Try to make me feel bad about it.
I dare you.
 |
| (That's what it's going to take for me to run with the kids again.) |
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