Where Ever the Road Takes Us

I have one double stroller for my daycare. We have been putting a lot of miles on it ...

I would have preferred to have a single stroller so my one-year-old could ride while my two-year-old could burn off some energy as he walked along at our side.

One (on foot) walk with my two-year-old (when my one-year-old went home sick), was enough to make me see that we had better do most of our walking before my second one-year-old joins us in October. A ten minute stroll to the mailbox turned into a half hour hike when my two-year-old set the pace.

Our days of 'two' are numbered. My new one-year-old is going to come for a few trial runs before her mom goes back to work in October. So I am indulging myself in walking where ever the road takes us, for as long as I choose for now.

Yesterday I thought we would head off in the direction of the first school I worked at last fall. As I walked the streets that I walked every day during those two months, I could feel the anxiety that I felt at that time resurface. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief knowing that I didn't have to 'walk that walk' again.

We detoured around that school and ended up walking past an elementary school that I was called out to work at a few times when I was on the sub list. Though memories of the kind and helpful staff overrode the anxiousness that I felt each and every time that I walked into a new school, again ... I was grateful that I was not walking that life of uncertainty any longer.

We continued to walk and I revelled in my renewed appreciation for my old life. We walked and walked and walked. My one-year-old dozed off to sleep. My two-year-old got stuck in a verbal rut yesterday as he asked, "Where'd my daddy go??" about a bazillion times (originally, I told My Youngest that it was at least a hundred. Then my two-year-old started again and it quickly became 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108 ... within the next minute and a half,so I am simply estimating that by the day's end it must have been close to a bazillion times).

I decided to turn back and start heading towards home when I spotted a school that I had never noticed before. I thought that we would walk past one last school and head back.

Low and behold, I spotted my neighbor at work in the school yard. She stopped and chatted with us for a while. We live across the street from each other. I used to watch her daughters before and after school. Her son bought my car. Yet we haven't spoken to each other in over a year.

It's funny how life works. Our neighbors become strangers to us ... yet we find them a half hour's walk away from home and we realize how much we have to say.

It is a small little adventure for us each day as we walk where ever the road takes us ...