future marathoner

As parents you try to not lay expectations upon your children. You say things like, "She'll do whatever she wants to do", but really deep down you secretly hope they pick something that you really like and really understand. Because then you can bond over that mutual love, and you can provide some sort of help on how to achieve the most they can possibly achieve at that something.

It is no secret that Elliot and I love (well I am more of a like in this category) running. Heck, Elliot even bought a jogging stroller before we got our crib. So Ada's recent most favorite thing to do - EVER - is bringing us lots and lots of joy. We try to go for our evening runs when she is winding down for the night. We do our stretches (which Ada also loves), load her up in her rocket ship (her jogging stroller), and out we go. In the past, this was a sure fire way to get her to fall asleep. She would be active for the first half, bored for the next quarter, and then asleep for the last quarter. All was great, we had a wonderfully easy way to get Ada to sleep, and we were getting some exercise at the same time. PERFECT!!

And then a couple of weeks ago Ada went and messed it all up, only it is the cutest thing in the world so we aren't holding it against her. Now she stays awake for the whole run, insists on getting out once we have reached the corner where we stop running, and then SHE runs. It is about 250 meters from our stopping corner to our house (up a hill!!) and Ada runs the whole way. Well, she does stop once about halfway home to talk to the rocks in one of our neighbor's front yards, but then she picks it back up and heads home. She of course, insists that we jog with her and I'm sure this looks pretty funny. Ada busting as fast as she can, me practically running in place next to her, and Elliot following behind, pushing an empty stroller with the biggest smiling, laughing grin on his face.