Movement
I used to be fairly active...even with kids! I surfed nearly every other week, skated on days in between. We would walk a mile or two to various parks, sometimes twice a day. At the park I would climb poles and do dips on the handrails, chase Ellie around or whatever I could to do little "Dad workouts." But then we moved, and now I am probably the weakest I've been since I learned to love surfing. I like to blame it all on my lack of surfing, but I know it's not true, and today was reaffirmation of that.
My car was acting up, and in an effort to not get stranded, we walked the same distance to a park that I used to walk while in Redondo Beach (0.5 miles). I also climbed the jungle gym, hung (hanged?) upside down on monkey bars, and chased my kids around. It felt good, and I had to wonder why I quit doing those things. The answer is that the park we prefer to go to is a whopping 0.7 miles away, much too far to walk, right? And so we drive. While there, I do chase the girls around and play, but in a more subtle way with little climbing and hanging on the kid's toys, mostly because I already feel weird enough being one of the only stay-at-home dads out there, so I try to not be any weirder by acting like one of the kids. But how ridiculous is that? Caring what a bunch of gossiping moms think about me having fun with my kids...Oh well, maturity comes slow for some.
Anyway, the point of all this is that I think movement escapes us slowly, and so it is difficult to realize when it is gone. I know when I first got married I took a desk job and sat in tons of traffic to and from work. Before I knew it I had gained 15 pounds and was falling asleep on the couch half the time from lack of exercise. I started taking the train to work, skating as much as I could to and from, which helped dramatically. That experience always stuck with me, as it took a realization that things had unknowingly and gradually gotten bad, so I needed to make a change. Well, today is another one of those days.
I think we will be walking much more in the near future, and I will certainly be climbing the outside of jungle gyms, setting terrible examples for my kids and everyone else's out there (sorry). As for the surfing? Hey, maybe we'll move back to California! Or I guess I could just start working out...bah.
My car was acting up, and in an effort to not get stranded, we walked the same distance to a park that I used to walk while in Redondo Beach (0.5 miles). I also climbed the jungle gym, hung (hanged?) upside down on monkey bars, and chased my kids around. It felt good, and I had to wonder why I quit doing those things. The answer is that the park we prefer to go to is a whopping 0.7 miles away, much too far to walk, right? And so we drive. While there, I do chase the girls around and play, but in a more subtle way with little climbing and hanging on the kid's toys, mostly because I already feel weird enough being one of the only stay-at-home dads out there, so I try to not be any weirder by acting like one of the kids. But how ridiculous is that? Caring what a bunch of gossiping moms think about me having fun with my kids...Oh well, maturity comes slow for some.
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| My prime dadness...so far. |
Anyway, the point of all this is that I think movement escapes us slowly, and so it is difficult to realize when it is gone. I know when I first got married I took a desk job and sat in tons of traffic to and from work. Before I knew it I had gained 15 pounds and was falling asleep on the couch half the time from lack of exercise. I started taking the train to work, skating as much as I could to and from, which helped dramatically. That experience always stuck with me, as it took a realization that things had unknowingly and gradually gotten bad, so I needed to make a change. Well, today is another one of those days.
I think we will be walking much more in the near future, and I will certainly be climbing the outside of jungle gyms, setting terrible examples for my kids and everyone else's out there (sorry). As for the surfing? Hey, maybe we'll move back to California! Or I guess I could just start working out...bah.
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