Mutual Time Out

We spent this past weekend at home, which is a bit of a rarity for us in the summer months. Saturday was a perfect morning with the first farmers' market in 2 years, a bike ride and the boys playing independently while Dave worked on his school work. (Yes, school work in summer for my oldest child. Hopefully he has just a couple more months left.) 

Sunday, we attempted something similar to give Dave more time for school work. That didn't work nearly as smoothly. There was no farmers' market or bike ride. I wanted to get some baking projects complete and photograph them with a nice background. Teddy wanted to run around with my background, snatch my stuff and practice his comedy routine. His comedy routine includes scaling the back of the Tahoe, attempting to ride my bike while it's secured to the back of the Tahoe, pushing the riding lawn mower into the garage door (so strong!) and generally doing anything and everything he shouldn't do while giggling hysterically. Needless to say, as his audience, I wasn't impressed. 

I was ready to put Teddy in a time out in his room. I was beyond frustrated, yet I recalled my discussion with AJ the evening prior where I talked about managing our frustrations. After spending 30 minutes coaching him on how to manage minor frustrations that won't matter the next day, I felt like I needed to practice that skill. I was ready for a time out myself.

So, we loaded ourselves into the Tahoe, with a few more comedic antics that still weren't funny. We headed to one of our favorite trails and did an easy 4 miles. Well, that's a lie. It wasn't that easy because it was already warm, and Teddy is still a growing boy even with the ease of his chair. But it was exactly what we both needed: fresh air, time together when we weren't annoying each other, beautiful nature and some endorphins.

I'm so grateful that we have the ability to spend our timeouts running together.

See, running makes us happy!