A walk in the park

It never ceases to amaze me how a walk with children inevitably doubles or triples the time you could walk somewhere by yourself as an adult. I'm not the fastest walker in the world, but I know I can walk down to the local shops in about 15 minutes. A roundtrip can easily be done within the half an hour, including doing a quick shop, for example, to pick up some bread and milk.

Add children into the mix, and if we can do it under an hour, I'll be happy. Tonight, as Anth had to take Ethan to soccer practice, I thought it would be an ideal time to take Callum out for a walk in the pram, drag Aidan along, and also let Wednesday the dog come along with us. Wednesday hasn't been out for a while, but as she's getting old, she finds walking too far a bit of a stretch. She's always excited to go, but about halfway through now she starts slowing up and hobbling along. The shops and back is about her limit.

We left home at around 5:50pm. Soccer practice takes an hour, so Anth was due back around 7:10pm. The trip to the local shops and back took close to 70 minutes. Aidan manages to:

• dawdle,
• point out to the world that "Wednesday did poos",
• speak to everyone on the path that he sees,
• try to run off and do little athletics in the park,
• scream in the video shop because he doesn't get his Blues Clues video,
• run off in the shopping centre,
• harass people in the fruit and vegies section,
• harass people in the deli,
• run off at the checkout,
• slowly walk the way home as he's tired.

Wednesday and Callum were excellent by comparison, and Callum slept the last 20 minutes!

Ciao for Now, Walking Angry Dad.