Our disastrous walk!

This morning I decided to take the kids on a walk for my daily exercise. Lately, I have been doing my workouts inside because the weather hasn't been that great but today it was warm and the sun was shining so I decided to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity! (or so I thought!) I should have known it wasn't a good idea when right off the bat things went wrong. I went to go get the stroller out of the back of my car and the car was locked. I came inside to grab my keys and then quickly remembered that my keys are locked inside my glove department. You might ask why my keys are there. Well, Saturday night was Parents Night Out at church and Craig and I had plans to take FULL advantage of free babysitting! He drove to church but I had my keys with me for some dumb reason. Since I don't carry a purse much these days and opt for the diaperbag as a purse instead, I had brought just a small purse to take out for the night- in which my keys would not fit in. Since I didn't need them, I decided to leave them in the car. But I didn't want to leave them out in full view tempting someone to break in and steal my car, so I had the bright idea of putting them in the glove box. Needless to say, I stayed home yesterday and didn't need my keys so never thought about getting them out of my car. And here we are today. Stuck at home. Anyways, back to the story--so since the stroller was locked up, I was forced to use Jacob's old stroller which is fine, except that it doesn't have a place for Jacob to ride on like the new one does. (The new one is a tandem stroller where the older kid can either sit or stand on the back). I explained to Jacob that he would not be able to ride and he was okay and said that he would walk like a "big kid" the whole way! (yeah right!) So we hardly get around the corner and bam-he trips and falls down. He scrapes both knees and an elbow. One knee is pretty bad and is bleeding just a little. He is crying and says he wants a band-aid. We were close enough to home that we could go get one so I agree but then he changes his mind and decides he wants to finish the walk first and just get a band-aid when we get home. Ok, so once again we are off. The streets are fairly quiet so Jacob is making conversation by commenting on each and every vehicle that is either sitting on the road or drives by. To those that know him--this is not shocking. Every now and then he asks if he can ride on the stroller with Olivia and I again remind him that this is not the stroller for that and that he needs to keep walking. I bribed him with the park if he could make it the whole way. Well, we have gotten over the trauma of the fall and he is walking fine until BAM. Again, the poor child has fallen. He was busy looking back at, what else, but a "speed car" as he calls it, and he tripped. Over his own feet nonethelss. So now we have fallen on already scraped knees and the drama has begun! This time he is crying harder and is insisting that he can't walk and needs band-aids. Well, we are about halfway done with our walk so I tell him that if he can't walk, then he certainly can't play at the park. This works for a little while but then his knees start hurting again. The drama continues and he just CAN'T walk and keeps asking to ride on the stroller or have me carry him. So, I look around the stroller and decide that if he stands on the footrest, rides backwards and holds on to the handle of Olivia's carseat, this just might work! What was I thinking???? I should have known better!!! So, he gets on and I tell him to hold on with dear life because if he lets go, he will fall off backwards and get hurt AGAIN. He gets on, is holding on tight but now I am really getting a workout!! Adding an extra 42 pounds to push isn't easy. But we are making it and the trauma of the knees is forgotten as soon as he sees the park! He takes off running towards the slide as I yell "Be Careful"! By this point it is getting very muggy outside and after only playing a few minutes he decides that he is hot and wants to go home. Oh yeah--and he wants his band-aids. Well, the park is right behind our house so I let him hop back on to go the short distance when low and behold, BAM! You got it! He fell off the stroller! Only this time, he was holding onto Olivia's carseat and somehow managed to jar it loose. So as he is falling backwards, the carseat is tipping backwards also and Olivia appears to be going down with him. I am watching all this in what appears to be slow motion and scream in horror as I am watching the carseat fall backwards. Somehow, in my distress, I manage to grab a hold of the end of the carseat and pull it upright. My heart is pounding in my chest, Olivia has the "deer in the headlights" look and Jacob is once again on the ground crying. I quickly realize that the carseat would not have fallen off completely because it was locked down in the back, but it certainly did tip backwards which was enough to scare me to death becuase she would have landed upside down! And remember--I can't get in my car to drive anybody to to the doctor!! Thank goodness we were about 10 feet from the house and Jacob managed to hobble the rest of the way home. I'm so glad we were nearly home because that was the end of the walk! And from now on, no more walks unless we have the right stroller. Jacob got his band-aids and appears to be feeling better. I just really hope this is not an indication of how my week is going to go!!