Our morning walk

This morning as we began our morning walk, Lukas said he wanted to walk instead of ride in the back of our stroller. I had planned to walk to the store to pick up a few things, so I knew our walk would be a little longer than normal and didn't expect him to walk the whole way, but he did! It was more than 1/2 mile one way, and he never told me to "slow down" like he normally does if I'm walking too fast. I didn't speed walk, but I didn't walk slowly...I walked a normal, adult pace.

To keep up with an adult pace, that meant he had to run a little, which he did! At first he said, "Mommy, I'm juggling!" which I took to mean "jogging". After I corrected him, he said several times "I'm jogging!" When he runs, he keeps his arms very high and close and wiggles back and forth, as if it makes him run faster.

He would jog a little ways, then stop and exclaim "There are two water meters!" He is enthralled with the small rectangular vaults next to the street that have the water meter for each home. He said, "There is a water meter! And there's another one!" or "There are two water meters!" A LOT.

I made him hold on to the stroller whenever we crossed a street, but for the rest of the walk he was running and stopping to explore water meters, pick up a magnolia leaf or point out broken sprinklers to me. At one point on our walk, he kept talking about "edging" that would be coming up. Sure enough, within a couple feet, there was some black plastic edging that someone had put at their property line. He definitely has a few things on that walk memorized!

I thought he would ride the stroller the whole way back, but he walked a few times and rode most of the way. The interesting thing on the way back was two men who were cutting into the asphalt. We stopped for a few minutes to watch because it involved several of his favorite things: a SPINNING blade and a VACUUM to clean up the dust from the cutting.

I hope he keeps wanting to walk on our walks...it's more fun for him and he gets a lot more exercise.