Keeping Up with Kids

Last Thursday we were walking to frozen yogurt after dinner at Rock Bottom with a large group and my left toe and right ankle were hurting a bunch (more than they had the past few days).  It made it really hard to take normal strides and keep up with everyone.  But it is sometimes even harder to fall behind.  I found myself really pushing myself to keep up, which is a terrible thing for me to do.  I finally tried to wave everyone ahead and so that it was just clear I wasn’t planning to keep up, so that then I could go as slow as I wanted.  Unfortunately as much as I tried to be smart, the distance was just too far (even though I did it 10 days earlier) and after walking to yogurt I was dead tired.  Charles came and picked me up.  Despite all my efforts, I have had some pretty bad days since then, with my hips especially being flared (probably from having a strange gait as a tried to accommodate my ankle and toes). 

So, the point of this whole story is it makes me realize that the desire to keep up with my future kids will be even stronger than the desire to keep up with friends.  I think I have come to terms with the fact that my kids won’t really care if I am the one to chase them around the house all the time, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy to sit there and not be able to do the chasing.  I don’t worry about them missing out, I worry about me missing out.  Hopefully it will be one of those things we gradually ease into as the kid becomes more active so that it isn’t as hard as it sounds like it might be. 

The walk to yogurt was also a good reminder of the impact that one little surge of energy can have.  When we were at the zoo with Richard and Meghan recently, Richie ran off and wouldn’t listen to them when they said to stop (mostly he does listen, but 2 year olds will be 2 year olds).  Richard had the stroller so Meghan took off running to chase him.  Obviously, when Charles and I are together, Charles will be the designated kid chaser, but what if I am alone with the kids.  It makes me realize I may need to employ different strategies (making the kid hold my hand or the stroller).  Although I don’t want to be the rigid parent, and I COULD chase my kid if need be, I think when they start walking to when they start obeying more consistently, I am going to have to error on the side of being strict.  When I think about the effect on my kids, I think they would rather have to hold my hand in public then have their mom really hurt often from chasing them.  Again, hopefully we can ease into this.  Plus, Charles and I are really good at coming up with unique solutions to solve the problems my arthritis brings up, so I don’t think this will be any different.