Changed Boy

I didn’t mention it last night because I was intent on getting the 24 synopsis up, but I need to mention that I’m so proud of my son. I’m probably jinxing him, but he’s had a complete 180 degree turnaround at school—he’s not getting in trouble nearly as much. He’s excited about going and is excited to come in and tell me about his day in the afternoons. I’m not sure what changed. I don’t know if he just found a well of maturity that was hidden in him or if it all just clicked or what, but he’s a changed boy. Mind you, he was always sweet before, but for whatever reason he would get into…situations…in the classroom. Too much talking, back talking, goofing off, whatever. His notes would say that he had had a great morning but that he had a rough afternoon or vice versa. Sometimes, he’d just have a stinker of a day through and through. Whatever the explanation, though, I’m really proud of him and I can tell he’s proud of himself as well.

I’m also proud of him because he ran with me for about half a mile yesterday after school. I’ve been wanting to get back to working out since Laura came, but I’ve just not had the energy, the time or the ability. I decided enough was enough, though, and set up a playlist on my iPod. I’ve got an app on my phone that is part of the Couch to 5K program, which is an interval training program that helps build up your endurance to do distance running. This app basically alerts you when you need to speed up or slow down. Harrison and I went to the high school track yesterday and I used my app to play music and keep track of our time. He wanted to run as fast as he could at first, but I showed him that he needed to pace himself so that he would be able to last. And last he did. Through eight run/walk intervals, he stayed right with me, pausing here and there for a few seconds, but never getting more than 1/8th of a track length behind me and always catching right back up. At the end, counting up our revolutions, I figured that we probably did a mile total, running half and walking the other half.

This is the kind of thing that I would have liked to do as a child but neither of my parents were at all interested in “exercising,” per se. I mean, they did stuff like take us swimming at the lake or we had bikes and stuff, but we just never got into the habit of doing active stuff regularly. I hope that Harrison and I can keep doing this. There’s a fun run in Dallas in May, which is about the time that we’ll be finishing the C25K program and I’m thinking about signing us up for it. It’s sponsored by Ringling Brothers so it will have some pretty cool stuff involved. We’ll see. Either way, I’m enjoying my time with him and really enjoying having someone to run with.