It was absolutely gorgeous today. Gorgeous! no other words for it! we spent much of it at our own little "central park", if you will. i should have known that it would be a popular destination on a day like today, but i just hadn't thought about it. so, we drove over around 3:00 (you know, prime time park time on a beautiful saturday afternoon) and there were about four cars trying to turn left into the entrance (in front of us- this doesn't include the other four cars turning right from the opposite direction...) again, i didn't think much of this.
we finally drove in the long and narrow driveway, and we were stopped. as far as we could see were cars. cars waiting for someone to pull out, or following people to their cars, or just generally stopped?!? ok, well, we were already in, and we couldn't get out if we tried. after about 10 minutes of slowly moving through the sludge of traffic, we circled back around (no parking spots in sight) and decided to leave the park. this resulted in an already tired three-year-old screaming at the top of her lungs. luckily at that moment, a spot opened up and we snatched it. three-year-old meltdown averted!
we then took our separate ways. My husband took a soccer ball and M and headed to the playground. the baby and i hit the nature trail to get us over to the park's main loop for a good ol' fashioned jog! i was so pumped up- so ready to run! and i set out at such a good pace that i got ultra-cocky and thought that this whole outing would be an absolute breeze.
and it would have been, had it been 9:30 on a weekday morning, or a crappy day out. but at 3:00 on the nicest afternoon in months, there would be no breeze. literally. i hit the loop at a decent pace and may as well have hit a brick wall with the amount of people walking, skating, tricycling, talking, smoking (yeah- i know), etc'ing in the middle, left, right- everywhere on that path. and it's a wide path! there were people, dogs, kids, babies, leashes wrapped around strollers... everywhere. i couldn't move. there was no running. there was barely even walking. and then, because of my immediate break in pace, the baby began to cry. no, not cry, wail. this was baby wah-wah at her greatest. she screamed so loud that people turned to stare. she screamed so loud that people actually stared me down as if i had put my baby on a bed of knives inside the stroller. it was bad. it was so bad that people who would not normally move off a path (you know those kinds of people) actually stepped aside. it was that bad. i wanted to pick her up as much as she wanted to get out of there. okay, maybe she wanted it more. she was hysterically crying to the point of hyperventilating, but this absolute badness was actually good.
people moved. and i moved! fast! and steady! it was great! she cried, they shifted and i ran. the louder she was, the further they veered, the faster i ran. i may record her and play this as my incentive music for the 10K. that's how great her crying got me to move. we made it to the playground quicker than i could have ever imagined. and i re-fell in love with the day again!
we reconnected with the rest of our family, took the baby out of the stroller (which thankfully resulted in baby happy-happy showing up!) and we played soccer in a field. it was wonderful; heavenly; perfect. a beautiful day spent with the family, and a valuable lesson learned by me. we will probably never return to the park on a gorgeous saturday afternoon again, but we'll always have our memories! and i'll always have my best run times yet, to date!
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