I often try to get the kids to walk or jog with me when we’re going to school or it’s a nice morning out or there’s some kind of race or an event coming up I’d like to train for. They almost never want to do it, and I usually let it go after they dig in their heels.
However, when I am able to convince them, it’s almost always a rewarding experience.
Yesterday, while the younger one was at baseball practice, the older one and I ran and walked around Town Lake. It’s so much easier to get him to open up about things like school and girls and social life and whatever else when we’re leisurely moving around the path.
When we’d circled back around to meet up with his brother (who was pitching like gangbusters on the mound, by the way), I felt like I’d gotten to know the older one better and could more easily imagine what his days at school and on the bus are like. I told him that 7th and 8th grades were pretty formative for me (in a somewhat traumatic but probably normal way) and so I’m curious how he’s dealing with all the changes coming at him.
I was happy to learn that, for the moment anyway, he’s dealing with change really well, adapting and learning and going with the flow as much as possible, while still staying true to who he is.
(I’m recording this for posterity so that next year or the year after I’ll be able compare notes)
((and check out those big old feet, now larger than my own father’s))
Anyway, I want to keep up the routine as much as possible. I even took a recording of my son telling me how much he enjoyed the run too, so I can play it back to him when he tells me how much he hates it next time. (I didn’t even have to waterboard him to get the confession out of him)
