Things did not go according to plan. We got to the park and I got everyone situated. The boys had their bikes and Caia and I were ready to walk. Tru took off but Jem instantly started crying, saying that his legs hurt when he pedaled. I continued to walk hoping it would motivate him to just push through it since I was pretty sure he just didn't want to pedal up the very slight incline. It didn't work and I found myself caught between the two boys. Tru was 50 yards in front of me, stuck on the hill waiting patiently for me to come and give him a push. Jem was 50 yards behind me crying and screaming as if his legs were being poked with sharp needles. Meanwhile, people were walking on adjacent paths or through the neighboring fields, most likely judging my poor mothering skills.
I finally caught up to Tru and told him that we needed to turn around so that Jem could put his bike back in the van and walk. That went over like a ton of bricks so then I had two screaming kids. Without going into even more detail I will say that at any given point I had at least one child crying or screaming. It was either, "My legs hurt!" or "I don't want to walk!" or "He's in front of me. I want to be in front." By the time we got ourselves back into the car, I was feeling rather frazzled. And then I looked at the clock and realized that my original goal of getting the kids some fresh air, working out some of their energy, and eating time off of the clock had actually been accomplished. The only difference was my expectation of the experience was much different from the reality. Would it have been nicer if my boys had actually enjoyed their time at the park? Of course. But in the end I realized it just wasn't worth getting worked up over. One of the things I've learned since having kids is that things rarely go according to plan. Sometimes things go better than you thought they would and sometimes they go worse, much worse. It's just how life works and it's okay.
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