A kids theory of sweat and pain....

Do your  remember yourself as a kid? Especially at recess? If you were anything like me, you ran through the playground at least twice, jumped rope for the full hour of lunch, played in gym and never stopped or slowed down, slid down hills for hours, public skating on Friday nights, you skated till the Zamboni forced you off...

Fast forward 20 years...jumping rope is a form a gym torture, screw the playground...I don't want bust anything, when I exercise I need rest periods...you get the picture. It is HARD now!!

I went sledding with my kids for the first time (sad excuse for a mother I know...). Instead of doing the parental thing I standing and watching and advising ( Please don't slide into the neighbors boat!!! Mommy cannot afford to replace that!) No I WENT sledding. I also took Miss Kathleen for her first time. Walking through the snow to the hill was HARD...well I thought I was going to die, cause 2-3 feet of snow that you sink through and is heavy...makes walking very, very labor intensive.
Flying down the hill, on a plastic saucer sled, with a squealing two year old was insanely fun!!! The ride of 5 seconds was awesome!! Walking back up the hill made me reconsider the awesomeness...and I thought of going into parental mode of watching but I HAD to go again...and again...and again...and faster...

As the kids and I trudged up the hill I realized that it was no picnic for the kids to climb up that hill either,they were tired and cold, and their legs hurt from dredging through that snow but payoff was FUN!! So what if it was torture to walk up that hill? We talked about how the last ride was, how cool and how fast! Once at the top we were all giddy with the next ride, my kids do not even think of that climb afterwards!

Last summer we did some geocatching, we thought it would be way fun! It was!! But sometimes we (as in the adults) would get cross with our kids who would cry and stumble and fall, while walking through brush and swamps...but they wanted to do this! It was fun because you were really treasure hunting! Our GPS died (yes it worked great for finding coordinates!!) and that ended the geocatching but last night we discussed saving and buying a nice little tool especially for geocatching. it makes hiking so much cooler!

So, here is to to fun and pain and maybe slimmer thighs for Mommy if she just focuses on the fun!