Winter Commute

Thanks to winter weather and repeated battles with illness, we haven't been walking to school much the past couple months. We seem to fall into this rut every winter, and the longer we're in it, the harder it is to get out, to get back into the habit, to get our sorry butts out of bed a half hour earlier in the morning.

In years past, it's always been me and me alone pushing to resurrect the bus/walk routine, but this year the kids have been surprising me. I announce in the morning, "We're going to drive today," and I receive back a chorus of hisses and boos. "When are we going to go back to taking the bus?" Cole almost begs.

Sometimes I'm embarrassed to tell people that we walk or take the bus to the boys' school. Rylan tells his speech therapist that we take the bus, and she responds with a polite, "Oh, really?" Implying: Why would you take the bus when you have a car? Why would you walk when you can drive?

But one afternoon last week, motivated by the hisses and boos, I laced up my tennis shoes and dug out the stroller. With the wind biting at my cheeks and a smile on my face, I pushed Rylan the mile and a half to the school. He sang the whole way.