Energy

Today my husband and I decided to bike to school to pick up the children and then bike them home.   It was hot, something in the ninety-degrees-ish range.   Let’s just call it sweat-a-lot hot.   We picked up the two children, put their helmets on and started to head home.  

Several things occurred to me at this point.   First, it is a lot easier to bike a heavy, unwieldy child on the back of your bike at the beginning of a ride, and then, when you leave them at school, your bike feels free, light and well-balanced.   You feel like you can move.   You feel like you’re powerful and you can pedal with the wind at your back all the way home.

Second, it’s cool in the morning.   The sun isn’t blaring down on you and, if you’re like me, you’re not full.  In short, it’s a nicer ride.

Third, you’re not partially tired from biking uphill to get to the school.   (It’s not uphill all the way, but the overall altitude is about one-hundred-thirty feet higher.)

And fourth, I was rethinking how smart it was when I said to my husband, “I’ll take the larger child. stick him on the back of my bike so he can act as a huge destabilizer, also doubling as, ‘precious cargo.’”

So we get started on the way home.   My son says things like, “go faster!”   He says, “don’t let daddy win,” when my husband pulls out ahead.  I am explaining all about safety in the fashion we adults do that to children that must sound like a lot of “blah de blah.”

Then, my son made me smile.   He said, “Mom, you never run out of energy.”   I told him thanks.  He was quiet for a bit and then he asked me as I struggled up the last of a steep hill, “Mom, are you burning calories?”

The Big Boy Update:  While my son was eating breakfast this morning, he said to me for no apparent reason, “Mom, someday you’re going to be a scientist.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My children loved swimming in the lake at my in-laws house this past weekend.   One of the fun things they like to do when they get in the water to swim at the lake is swim under the boat.   The boats in their lake are only electric, which necessitates mostly pontoon boats.   My in-laws boat is fun to swim under, between the two pontoons.   When you go under, the color of the water is reflected differently and looks quite yellow.   My daughter asked why it was yellow.   I think my mother-in-law explained about refraction of light and reflection of, well, honestly, I’m not sure why the water looks like melted snow with pee on it.   I’m going to have to ask her myself the next time I see her.

Fitness Update:  Fifteen miles to pick up the children to bike them home on the back of our bicycles.   I wasn’t sure we’d get a lot of use out of our bike child seats when we bought them two years ago, but it’s been a great way to have some time to bond with a child.   We all love our bikes with bike seats.