Random thoughts and moments from my life. REALLY random.
Everyone tells you to enjoy their babyhood, because it goes so fast. No one tells you that enjoying it doesn't slow it down one bit. Jerks.

They continue to survive

I read an article…somewhere…recently…(don’t you love the journalistic integrity? Does it give you goosebumps? Well, I did read an article. Somewhere. Recently) about kids and exercise. The gist of the article was that being outside somehow causes children to move more vigorously. The space, the fresh air, the sunlight, whatever. It all comes together to encourage more activity. This isn’t forced exercise, like PE class or some ill advised Kidz Bop workout video. This is an authentic reaction to being outside and free to move.

See? I thought, that is the problem. Too much with the being inside. Too much order and fluorescence and “I said sit down already.”

Kids need to be outside to be healthy.

And lo, there was guilt.

So this afternoon, when we arrived home, I shooed the boys outside.

“Walk your dog,” I said.

“Because she needs a walk, because it’s beautiful outside, because it’s good for everyone, and if that’s not enough, because I said so,” I said in response to their bewildered objections. They trooped off, bickering. Carmi bounded and grinned along in their wake.

The house had only been quiet for a few minutes when the calm started to gnaw at my self-satisfied repose.

What had I done?

Walk your dog? Walk your dog?

Sure, I’d just sent them around the block – not even AROUND the block, but up the cul-de-sac (or “culture sack,” as Max calls it) and back. A stroll around an interior curve of street. But who’s to say that street isn’t entirely populated with child-murdering weirdos? SURE, none of them showed up on that Watch Dog site that’s supposed to show you where the child-murdering weirdos are in your neighborhood, but aren’t those the worst kind? The kind that DOESN’T show up?

Oh oh oh, I thought, what have I done? They don’t even NEED more exercise! They never stop running and jumping and hurling themselves off pieces of furniture.

I paced past the front window.

And lo, there was guilt.

Apparently all the child-murdering weirdos were napping or shopping or something, because a few minutes later the boys returned. They were still bickering, and Carmi was still leaping joyfully. I stood at the kitchen sink and watched them file in and totally played it off like I was never worried at all.

Max marched over to me and thrust a small fistful of lilac blossoms at me. Raphael followed him up by fishing a wad of lilac out of his pocket. Tre looked resentful and explained that he didn’t know they were picking me flowers until they’d already passed the lilac bush.

I thanked them all, and since the stems were too short to stick in a vase, I floated them in a little bowl of water.

P1010056

And lo, there was joy.

Comments

Sheri

Gabi used to call the dining room the "diamond room." :-)

Serenity Now!

Oh this is why I want to move to the country where the worst things my kids have to worry about are the horses behind the fences and the deer hopping over them.

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