Curses, foiled again!

I asked Pete to take a picture of me running with Anna in the jogging stroller, perhaps as evidence in case she complained that I don't do enough things with her.

Craig was supposed to ride his bike with me, but he bailed at the last minute. Anna is riding her bike for fairly long stretches at a time, but she need a lot of help getting started every time she stops, so letting her ride along with you is not yet in the best interest of continuous aerobic effort :) She begged me to push her in the jogger. I had,  as recently as last week, written off taking her in the jogger EVER again because she is HEAVY. Being a sucker I tried to reason my way out of it:

Me: Anna, I like your company. But you know how when you come out of school and you hand me your backpack right away because you want to run over to Craig's classroom to wait for him? You do that because your backpack is too heavy and makes it hard to run, right? Well, that's how it is for me when you're in the buggy.

Anna: Well, sometimes I don't give you my backpack and I just wear it and run slower. So, you'll have to just have to run slower.

Me: Curses, foiled again.

Nothing like having your child take your analogy, shoot holes in it, and turn around and use it on you. I think I talked to her too much when she was a young child, don't you? What's worse is she wants to bring books with her to read....and snacks...and a drink. And she likes to ask you questions while you're running. I was huffing and puffing along and she was asking things like, "Mom, what does C-I-V-I-L-I-A-N spell?" Which lead not only to me telling her, but also defining it. On the positive side, it was a gorgeous day--blue sky, with weather in the '60s. Really a perfect day for gasping...um, I mean running.