"Okay, turn on your shoe."
Saying that has yet to get old for me. I only wish it would stay in the elegant realm of 007, or even come to a comfortable stop at Maxwell Smart, but every stinking time my brain carries it right on through to Inspector Gadget. Inevitably that addictive tune irritates me until I have to get some relief by opening my mouth and irritating the rest of the family. That's what families are all about.
We have started our running club. We head over to the park, The Sister turns on her Nike+ system (she has a chip under the insole of her shoe that's linked with her iPhone) to measure our distance, and we run. The Sister was on the track and cross country teams for the past couple of years, so she is good about motivating the kids, reminding them to keep their elbows in and their hands loose... She has taught them about finding a pace that can be maintained rather than shooting off and then wanting to walk too early. My role is to gasp and pant and stumble -- and I do it well -- in order to make them all feel better about themselves (learning a sport really is about building self-esteem).
We have a little chart that has a marathon -- 26.2 miles -- broken into quarter mile cells. After each quarter mile run they get to color a cell, working towards "finishing a marathon" and having a celebration.
The name of the running club was actually more drama than a Glee episode. "Brainstorm and come to a consensus," is a phrase that I won't say again without proper preparation (e.g. a candy bar stashed in my bedroom closet with enough space cleared on the floor for me to go fetal after the last sweet bite is gone...)
I've gone back and forth about whether or not to run as a pack, or let them go as fast or slow as they want with individual charts. For now I've decided that this is a team activity. We run as a family to both encourage and annoy each other. Because that's what families do, and dammit, we're all going to like it.
