A Spring in Our Steps

Spring is the season for me to walk my son to school. In my idealized vision, we'd also be walking together through the fall and winter except for the coldest, wettest days. Also in my ideal world, we'd be riding our bikes to school and I'd be using my bike to run errands and go to lunch, since I live only a couple miles from our downtown center. And we live about half a mile from the elementary school my son goes to. But in the real world, I don't bicycle much, and my kid hasn't learned to ride the bike I bought him two years ago, even with training wheels.

We've leaned hard into the habit of driving to school; it always felt necessary amid a pattern of rushed mornings, when I don't even have time to make coffee until butts are in classroom seats. After joining the Parent Teacher Club and taking some opportunities to walk to campus for midday club duties, I realized just how easy a jaunt it is. I wore my smartwatch and clocked the journey at ten minutes. I figured that if my son and I bumped up our departure time by that same amount each morning, we could easily arrive on foot without making him late.

Sometimes I think my son says no as a reflex to Mom's and Dad's suggestions. "No!" he said (whined) immediately when I first floated the idea of walking to school. Whether it was the thought of additional exercise or simply a change in routine that bothered him, I'm not sure. I tried to keep an upbeat tone as I improvised a persuasive argument. Extemporaneous debate has never been my strong suit, but as a parent I've had to adapt. Whatever I said seemed to work. In the middle of our first walk together, he said, "Actually Mom, I love walking to school. Can we do it every day?"

It was early springtime when we started walking once, twice, or three times each week. We live on a street of homes built in the 1950s, and as we get closer to school, the houses get even older. There are tons of mature trees and large homes with nicely kept landscaping, all of which makes for a cavalcade of flowers and greenery. We walk on carpets of fallen petals and under canopies of vivacious pink. Tulips, irises, peonies, and daffodils cheer us along. The neighborhood birds are equally festive at 7:30 in the morning. Sometimes we find a group of robins searching for breakfast in a particularly grassy front yard, which my son has dubbed "Robin Alley."

Generally, he's not that interested in birds or plants. He likes to chatter and play during the entirety of the walk. The one element guaranteed to snap him out of that is a pale calico cat who lives about halfway between our house and the school. This cat is so gregarious, it must be well known and loved in the neighborhood. It will start meowing the minute it sees us rounding the corner, and jog right up to us with a pushy but sweet request for affection. For a moment, my son and I are both children squealing over a cute kitty. We can only afford to pause briefly for pets, but the cat will keep following and grace us with a few more leg rubs before we're alone on the sidewalk again.

On my solo walks, I've adopted the habit of putting in earbuds to listen to podcasts. I think it's a reflex, triggered by an assumption that my modernized brain will get bored without some extra input. I always pocket my phone and earbuds when I walk my son to school so I'll have entertainment on the way home. This past Tuesday, I decided to leave the buds in their case. The extra minutes spent in transit, compared to driving my car, would be spent with birdsong instead.