Winter Workout

Who needs a treadmill when you have the normal grind of getting kids to school in the snow? The public schools were closed again on Friday, but Jada's after-school program re-opened, and so she could go there all day. That was the easy part, since it's just two blocks from our house.

Aaron's school is the hard part, since it's a good two miles from our house and a mile from my office, and bus access isn't super great. And, because Aaron perishes easily, he got a ride on my shoulders for most of the trek. Let me tell you, the combination of his weight and the slushiness of most roads and sidewalks made for a very strenuous workout!

Because Aaron's school opened an hour late, I took him into the office after we had dropped off Jada. I had brought one of our portable DVD players so he could watch something while I cranked through some work, but the DVD he picked out (Little Mermaid) was so impossibly smudged that it wouldn't play right. Set on watching Little Mermaid, he got whiny about not being able to watch it, not understanding my explanation that this was the reason I told him not to play with DVDs. Luckily we only needed to be at my office a short spell before heading out to his school. Alas, the damage was done; upon my return and for hours thereafter, I had Aaron's whiny voice ringing in my ears.

I couldn't get out of the office early so was really cutting it close in terms of being able to get Aaron and then get Jada before her school closed at 6. I hoofed it to Aaron's school, got him ready and out as quickly as I possibly could without being too abrupt, and then hauled him to a well-served bus stop, walking further to increase our chances of picking something up sooner rather than later (two lines that run every 10 minutes rather than one line that runs every 15 to 20 minutes).

Only we ended up waiting for what seemed like an eternity. It was only about 15 minutes, but it was more than enough to make getting Jada by 6 an impossibility. I called Amy, who had just arrived home and was grateful for even a few minutes to exhale after a crazy day and a hard week at work, and who was instead instructed by her desperate husband to put her coat back on and fetch our daughter.

A few minutes after that, our bus finally arrived, and took forever to go the mile home. As we passed by the stop we would've gotten off at to get Jada, I looked at my watch: 6:03. Thank goodness Amy was home in enough time to do what I couldn't. A few minutes later, Aaron and I got off, threw snowballs at each other for the one block walk from the bus stop to our house, and arrived just as Amy and Jada were getting home.

All told, it was 4 1/2 miles of walking in the snow, 2 1/2 of which were with a near-40-pounder wiggling on my shoulders. I should patent this form of exercise; it is foolproof for keeping the pounds off during the winter months, although only masochists like me would try this at home.