Rob has elevated the content of our blog again, so I’m going to deflate it with this nice story of what you should never do.
I was supposed to run 8 miles this morning, but Elise is on a sleeping strike so I woke up moments before Rob had to leave for work. This obviously left no time for me to squeeze in even a shortened run. So instead, I decided to load up the bike trailer and my bike and take the girls on a long nap-time bike ride.
When ever I do my city errands on the bike I’m shouting back to Elise not to drift off between stops so I was certain it would take no time for her to zonk and I would get a good 90 minutes of biking on the trails before Olivia got bored. Well, I was so wrong. SOOOOOO wrong.
Elise didn’t fall asleep until after we had gone about 10 miles and she had cried for the last 3 of them. I kept thinking, “just a little farther and she’ll be out.” But no. I had promised Olivia that we’d see this long tunnel before we turned around, but there was no way I would have made it the next 3 miles before Elise totally freaked out so we headed home, defeated.
I kid you not, a mile and a half after I turned back for home Elise fell asleep, so I asked Liv if she still wanted to see the tunnel. “Yes!” she said, and so I turned around yet again.
We didn’t even make it back to the point where we turned around the first time and now Olivia was telling me that she wanted to go home because she was tired. AAHHHHH! Olivia’s beseaching me to turn around woke Elise back up leaving us with 10 miles of screaming until we could get back to the car.
To make matters worse, I had to stop the bike about every 5 minutes or so because Elise would pull Olivia’s hair in her anger, or Olivia would steal Elise’s water bottle. Or who knows what else they managed to think of to make me have to stop. At one point I was walking down the trail holding a sobbing Elise, walking my bike, which was dragging the empty trailer and being followed by a sobbing Olivia.
What had been carefully planned to take only 90 minutes turned into 3 hours of riding around like a spectacle. I was pitied, glared at, gawked at, and only once did anyone offer to help me. Not like there was anything anyone could have done.
The only thing that I could say I liked about that whole ordeal was when we passed 3 pregnant moms and their spouses riding on bikes in the opposite direction and I could see the look of horror on all of their faces as they thought, “OH! What are we getting ourselves into?!” Other than that I almost swore off biking for life. If the trailer hadn’t cost $250 I might have.
you poor dear! A+ for effort. you are such a good mom. making memories is what it is all about right?…right?
Ohhhh! I deal with just one crying baby in the stroller when she decides she’s had enough of our walk. I can’t imagine two!
If it’s any consolation, the post you wrote about the ordeal was well written and enjoyable to read…in that I’m-glad-that-didn’t-happen-to-me sort of way.