Date night

Has it really been this long since I took Mallory out for her first bike ride? Wow. Well, I thought Liam was busy and quite happy to be scooting around on his scooter when I took her out, but when he saw me putting on my helmet and strapping Mallory into the seat, he actually looked a little bit sad. So I promised him I would take him out too, and earlier this week I made good on my promise. I seem to be getting no exercise at all without my kids these days, so I'd might as well do what I can to get some with them, right? He's getting to be a heavy little dude to haul around on a bike, but so much the better.

It was awesome. I got to thinking about the last time I did anything alone with Liam, and I honestly can't remember when or what that would have been. We went out after dinner one night, and we kept up a steady stream of conversation about the motorcycles and bunny rabbits and sprinklers and ducks we were passing by. I took him by the house I used to live in when I was a kid (well, teenager, but to him it's all the same). We stopped to watch a groundhog running around on the riverbank for a bit. On our way home, we pedalled through a park that contains a giant man-made hill in the midst of our city's vast flatness; and Liam piped up behind me and asked if we could get off the bike. Not so we could play on the playground equipment, which was a request I'd been anticipating, but just so that we could run up the hill. Which we did - with Liam grunting and groaning and carrying on like this was very hard work all the way. Very dramatic.

We spent about 45 minutes out on our date, and when we got home it appeared that Mallory had had some fun quality alone time with Chad, too. I have been thinking ever since then about making a point of doing this on a regular basis. I used to have so much fun when it was just Liam and me - Chad and Mallory are fun too, but it's different when it's one on one. Date night may become a regular occurrence from now on.