adventures in family bike riding

The boy is now officially proficient in riding his bicycle without training wheels.  of course, the 3 times he's fallen off, he's cried like a wee lass and protested that he needs his training wheels back on, but I just remind him that he sometimes falls down when standing still, so putting the training wheels back on may or may not be the solution.  Anyway.  This theoretically allows us more biking freedom, he can go faster, and more quietly, and can now go on the walking trails, where the extra wheels before might have made it tricky with the gravel and whatnot.  Anyway.  There is a school about 2.5km from our house which has a playground.  I'm thinking it's a bit far, but we'll take our time.  I have to convince myself of this, because I mentioned it offhand to the boy and he was like, let's do it, whee, park!  So we start out, I was planning to be out for maybe half an hour, but then the idea of the park came up, so he wouldn't turn back.  Let me tell you, it was a lesson in patience.  And balance.  The baby in the seat on the back of my bike sort of throws off the centre of gravity, and adds a new element to the bike ride.  Along with the new element of biking with a 4 year old who needs to stop for rests roughly every 30 feet.  I tried to explain to him that it's probably harder to stop and start and stop and start up again than it is to just keep going for a bit longer, but he's got the logic of...well...a 4 year old, so that didn't really jive with him.  Anyway.  We made it to the park, but it took us forEVer to get home.  The baby needed a nap, so she got pretty angry at the playground when I wouldn't let her go down the slides headfirst by herself.  I know, I'm no fun.  She's quite independent when it comes to everything but walking, so it was sort of her way or the highway.  The only time she gets angry is when she's tired, so we had to pack it all in and come home for a nap.  We were gone over 2 hours, and we were probably at the park for about 15 minutes.  That's a lot of biking.  And stopping and starting.  And "come on buddy, let's see if we can make it to the bench / garbage can / stop sign / dead tree without stopping!"ing.  I'm on kijiji right now to see about one of those wee ride back of your bike attachment things for longer bike rides.  I'd hook that on the man's bike, of course.  

Anyway.  Damn, I'm tired.  

Also, I went for about a 2k run last night, without stopping.  When I figured out how far I had gone, I was really impressed with myself.  I credit the rower, it must actually be doing something for me.  I had to stop for the painful breathing before I had to stop for the cramp in my side, so that was good too, I think.  I'll keep trying it.  I heard a rumour too that I may be inheriting an mp3 player, and not have to share with the man and get the odd like, Cyprus Hill song in the middle of my Mariah Carey / Fergie / Joel Plaskett / Rihanna mix.  Anyway, on the way back I mostly walked but did run some.  I should have just turned around and not stopped, because it was only after I got going again that I had a cramp.  Live and learn.  I'm going to bring the man's watch next time too and try to do that run 9 walk 1 or something.   

Wish me luck!