Because clearly carrots fix everything, don’t you agree? I’m not even a big fan of carrots, but because I tell my boys they have to eat them it means I have to eat them too. Even though I don’t like them. And today they were the snack that I packed (remind me in the future that gooey chocolate chip cookies are healthy and the only appropriate snack to pack). I could have really used a gooey chocolate chip cookie today. And a better idea.
So the world is beginning to thaw and the sun came out and actually warmed things up (if you were in the sun….the shade not so much). And it’s Friday. And this homeschool mom was needed an excuse to get out of the house. And so I came up with the bright idea and incorporated a bunch of things into it: Plan- jog to the park and feed the ducks and play on the playground. I would get a good run in, Leighton would get a good bike ride in (and maybe be inspired to lose the training wheels), we’d get to enjoy the sunshine and who doesn’t like feeding the ducks? I even remembered to pull old stale hamburger buns out of the freezer which have been there for who knows how long. I usually manage to leave those at home, but this time I was not going to do that!
And so a few hours after working hard on school and getting through most of what we had for today, we got loaded up. Caedmon insisted on wearing his helmet. I thought it might be because he thought I was going to run super fast and he needed extra protection in the jogging stroller, but I think the real reason is because Leighton was wearing his and Caedmon actually likes wearing his helmet (at least this week…wait till he actually needs it). And I packed water bottles, carrots, and the stale bread. We were set to go.
My first clue that things may not go as planned occurred about a block from our house. I should have taken the warning. Especially since the park was 2.5 miles away. But Leighton’s bike doesn’t go great through the snow. Most of the side walk was clear but then we’d hit big areas of snow and inevitably he had to jump off and try to pull his bike through the snow. What that really meant was that mommy ran the jogging stroller through the snow, parked it, and then ran back through the snow and pulled Leighton and the bike through the snow. And that pattern continued. Too many times to count. In fact it took us over an hour to make it to the park….yeah. The worst was when we actually got to the lake…the path there was totally covered with snow and ultimately we made it by Leighton pushing the stroller and me pulling the bike/helping push the stroller/steering both onto the path and not towards being plunged into the lake, especially since the almost 3 year old was strapped into the stroller.
And the great idea of feeding the ducks? Would have been a great idea if the lake was not frozen and there were actually ducks there….yeah. I know. But at least I had the stale bread!
Did you know there aren’t a lot of kids playing at the park when it’s covered with snow? Like pretty much no one else? So we had the whole park to ourselves. We actually had a lot of fun playing. And eating carrots. More so playing though.
We had to go back about ¼ of the way around the lake to get back to the sidewalks and way home and so I thought of a better plan rather than me attempting to push/pull both stroller and bike through the snow. I parked the stroller, ran the bike ¼ of the way around the lake to where the sidewalk started, ran back, grabbed the stroller and ran that back around. The boys had one job while I was running back and forth with various heavy objects…hold hands and walk together nicely all the way to where mommy parked the bike. Worked pretty well, except Caedmon decided he wanted to ride in the stroller, so I ended up pushing him a good portion of the way around but all in all it wasn’t bad.
We made it home a lot faster, I found a few side streets where snow had actually been cleared off the sidewalks and there was a lot less pulling and tugging bike+5 ½ year old through. And it was downhill most of the way home. Oh did I forget to mention that before….yeah it’s 2.5 miles uphill to the park….
But there were no tears, no blood, and good attitudes throughout the entire adventure. Clearly it was the carrots that made it all better. But I think Leighton said it best when we got home and he said “I want to go to the park again, but next time when there isn’t so much snow”. You and me both buddy.
Hiking Mommy 