Why I not runnin?

We live a few blocks from a park. I take my kids there, take the dogs there, every so often I take them both there at the same time. H and I walked to the park nearly daily when she was younger. These days, I am so often on my way to or fro somewhere that I find myself driving S to the park more often than not. It was a rare day yesterday when I felt I had not only time to walk to the park, but time to encourage S to walk too, instead of strapping her into the stroller and hurrying some more.

We did stop to pick flowers of each color, and leaves, and grass- but when we weren't collecting nature we were running. S with her arms chugging, shoulders hunched up around her ears- an animated run. We got to the park more quickly than I expected, I was planning on more of a dawdling stroll, not the bolt it turned out to be. After we were there for a while and lunch time was drawing near I had a brief panic about how I would get her to leave the park with out the restraint of a stroller or car seat. I talked myself down and did reverse bread crumbs all the way home (lets walk to the gazebo, lets walk down the hill, lets walk to the silver car) we were half way home before S had her "hey...wait a minute, we actually ARE leaving the park" moment.

S wanted to run the whole way home, and was annoyed with me for holding her back at the street crossing. Once we crossed the main street on the way home, we hit a steep uphill. S asked if she could run, I said she could. She geared up, got her arms ready and gave it her all, started running up the hill. She stopped, frustrated that the hill was slowing her down, looked at me and demanded, "Why I not runnin?!"

I tried to explain the physics of running up hill, and tried not to laugh too hard, S is very sensitive to being laughed at, or even with. Though boy can she dish it out.

J and I were talking last night, after the girls were in bed, about the many things we're working towards, the many things that overwhelm us. He said, "Why I not runnin?" and we laughed again.