YaYa must have thought that he was trying to win a stage of the Tour de France. He was focused as he stood up off his bicycle seat and pedaled with all of his might. Meanwhile, I felt the fatigue set in as I chased behind him. I yelled for him to slow down, but by then he was too far ahead to hear me.
I was chasing him on foot, but it was no match for his fierce cycling abilities. The sun was going down, and I wanted to keep YaYa in my sight. That was the motherly thing to do. At the same time, I enjoyed watching him focus of his speed. He looked like he was having fun.
I, on the other hand, was not quite having as much fun. It was supposed to be a solo run at the end of a busy weekend day. I had just changed into my running clothes, was waiting for Tom to come back from a trip to the store so that I could go. The door opened and, to my surprise, YaYa walked through it. He took one look at my running clothes and decided that he wanted to come along. Reluctantly, I said yes.
I wasn’t that I didn’t want to be around him. I just wanted some running time alone. But running with YaYa has it’s benefits too. I like that YaYa shares in an active lifestyle. There is no running a lazy pace when you are with him; he likes to move fast.
I didn’t want to have to worry about him being on the street so I drove us to the bike path at the local park. We were limited on time. The sun would be setting soon. We had to hurry up and get started. We had 4 miles to cover.
On the way out, YaYa did a pretty good job of not getting too far ahead of me. I think this was because we were taking the dirt path that parallels the paved path and he didn’t know exactly where to go. It was a different story after we turned around. At one point, I told him that if he passed the guy with the white shirt (who was in a full sprint) that he was going *way* too fast. Later, I had to yell for him to stop all together and just wait for me. YaYa didn’t seem to know how to go slow any more. I was huffing and puffing trying to keep up, and I really didn’t want to go fast at all.
I managed to keep my little boy in my view for the first 3 miles, and then he took off. I just ran as best I could and knew that he would be there at the end waiting for me. I finished the last mile running up the hill to the bathrooms and there he was. He was sitting on the ground resting. He said that his legs were tired. “I bet,” I said, “mine are tired too.”
I handed him the cell phone so that he could call Dad to brag. I told him to tell Dad that he had won the Yellow Jersey, the Polka-Dot *and* the Green Jersey. His smile spread from ear to ear as he gave the play by play of the trip. Then we went home to eat the dinner that I had made ahead of time.
21stCenturyMom says
What a cute story. I can see how you would be conflicted between wanting some ‘me’ time and wanting to share a joy of athletics and the great outdoors with your cute kid.
Dorothy Scharff says
Julie, I’m glad to see that you are still running and blogging. I missed reading your blogs over on Hal’s site. Sorry to hear about the stress in the career life, but it sounds like you are getting in some really great family time.