Will Walk For Sanity

**If he's walking and he's outside, Drummer is in his happy place.**

There is a reason why that hour before dinner is called ‘the witching hour’. It seems a universally held truth that life gets crazier when the sun gets low in the sky. Whether it be dwindling maternal endurance, or true kiddo craziness, it’s always tricky to navigate.

Today the kids took later naps, so they were waking up around 4:30. Tiny only woke up halfway, and I find her hardest to manage when she’s still partially in a dreamscape. Drummer woke up saying, “Go. Go, go, go, go go!” 'Go' was one of his first words. Maybe this tells you something about him.


**On the Go**

I knew it was time to be thinking about dinner. But I evaluated what it would do to my sanity to listen to Drummer clamor to ‘go!’ and to Tiny intermittently whine in her efforts to fully wake up while I cooked. Oh, it so wasn’t happening.


**This is the face you get when you try to tell him not to 'go'.**

Instead, I went to my Dad’s go-to solution for everything:

Walking.

My dad believes in walking like a poet in his muse.

Feeling tired? A walk should wake you right up. Feeling stressed? Go get some fresh air! Need some time to think? Go take a lap!

Truly, he’s instilled in me that walking is a cure-all.


**I miss walks on the beach.**

Tiny protested that she wanted to stay inside and color, but I would not be moved. I told her she could take two books and a mini tootsie-roll on our journey, and she changed her mind.

I loaded them up in my beloved double stroller (the Britax B-ready) and off we went. I didn’t know where we were going until Tiny inquired if we could walk to get her haircut (an unfinished errand from earlier today. I trimmed her hair last week, but it needed some finishing work from a professional). The hair salon was further than I’d planned on walking, but what the heck? I thrive on spontaneity.

“Sure. Let’s go get your haircut.”


**We all needed a little wind in our sails.**

I pushed the stroller and let the heaviness of the 90 degree day settle on my shoulders. It was an agreeable weight. I walked and pushed, struggling up the steeper hills, but loving the movement, the rhythm, and the sweat on my forehead. Drummer happily watched the world go by. Tiny lost herself in her books and her imagination. It played to all of our needs.

We pushed ourselves right up to the hair salon and right on through the witching hour. Rockstar met us at the hair salon after work, and then we decided to grab dinner at a place next door.


**If only I'd the energy to take them on the type of wild ride Uncle B can provide.**

Instead of feeling frazzled, I felt refreshed.

Which confirmed to me that sometimes it’s okay to let ourselves step outside of our routine if it means preserving our sanity.

That cooking is good, but sometimes a 5:00 outing is better.

That walking is pretty much always a good idea.