Happiness is watching your toddler take joy in one of your favorite pasttimes: running. This morning, my son came up to me and asked to go running. He put on his “race suit,” collected his socks, shoes and track suit and brought me my running shoes. I was amazed. Our early morning routine usually includes much nagging and reminding of tasks in order to get him dressed. This morning, while I checked Facebook, balanced the checkbook, he dressed himself. Socks on correctly, shoes on the right feet. He was ready to go.
Words cannot describe how happy I was to take this first run with him. He was laughing, maintained decent form, remembered to stop at the corners to look for cars and just enjoyed himself. As I jogged alongside I was reminded how grateful I am to have him in my life. We are a family blessed with health and we focus on maintaining it with healthy habits like eating and exercising.
At the schoolyard, we twirled, we climbed hills, we ran past the soccer girls (he somersaulted to show off for the crowd of watchers). In the parking lot we jumped the stripes for car parking, we ran up steps, we chased another jogging couple with their sleeping baby in a carriage. He stopped to look at the bridge, he asked to pet the puppy going by. We walked home. In all, this 45 minute adventure covered about 1 mile of running and 1/2 mile of walking.
I’m proud of my little guy. We purposely do not focus on winning when he’s around, but only encourage him doing his best. I have mixed emotions when I see others out with their child. I don’t want to push him into activities while he’s too young, but I do want to encourage him in activities that make him happy.
I attribute this request of his today to a demonstrated love of running by both my husband and myself. While we continue on our journey as parents, we hope to model healthy eating, sleeping and exercising.
Really, for today, although the sun was in the sky, the real sunshine was in my soul. I hope this run is the first of many that I will be honored to share with my son.
