Running With the Children of the Corn

The other day I decided to go for a run.  My oldest was home and said he’d go with me, so of course the next thing I knew the younger 2 decided they wanted to run as well.  Well, this is going to be fun!

First try we all walked barefoot to the end of the driveway, realized it was oh-my-god Florida cold and all ran back in to get on some shoes.

Second try….  we all started jogging together at about the same speed.  It didn’t take long for the older two to start jetting ahead, skipping, jumping, boxing, and going in circles and the youngest to start lagging behind.  After a bit I told the older two to go back and get their brother since they weren’t running anyways, they were doing everything else.  Let the fun begin!

The rest of the run went something like this:

Want to box?  Hey! Mom, he/she hit me! You knocked me down!  (they all sprint past me like a pack of dogs hunting)  I bet you can’t do a back flip!  No back flips on cement!!! (me obviously)  I bet I can punch harder than you! ( my daughter, go figure) All of this is punctuated with frequent I’m getting tired, running is boring, I want a drink, blah blah blah.

So we get to the corner of our block and I tell the younger 2 they can head home.  But mom, we love running! We don’t want to go home!  Really????

Just one more way a parent can learn to completely zone out the circus created around them while still magically hearing the parts you have to in order to avoid a trip to the emergency room.  Seriously, who would think it’s a good idea to learn to flip in the middle of an asphalt road??

Do you ever run or do other exercise with your kids? Is it as much of an adventure as my family’s outings tend to be or is it just me and mine?

I’m not even going to tell you about how amazingly relaxing it is to do yoga with them.  (Is there a sarcasm font?)