The Finish Line

Our little neighbourhood here in Suburbiaville is tucked away up against conservation land. It’s mostly quiet and calm. It feels a lot more… rural… than it actually is.

On one side of the conservation is one of the busier streets in town, and on the other is our “expressway”, the main highway through the city. You wouldn’t know it, really, because all the trees and watershed area act as a very good buffer from the noise. You almost forget they are there.

But recently, we’ve been venturing out into these busy thoroughfares on some of our errands, and will continue to do so. One reason is because Stinkerbelle’s school, while just over a kilometre away, is actually on the busy street to our east. So we will be traversing this busy road twice a week, hopefully on foot for some exercise a lot of the time, but likely more often in the car. Especially in winter.

But the other, and more fun reason, is that in the last month or two, one of the best coffee shops in town has opened a store just down the road from That Girl’s school. Chock full of cool places to chat and excellent fair trade coffees — my favourite being the Ethiopian Sidamo — I have been itching to go there since I first saw the sign go up on the outside of the building under construction.

It is open now.

So today, it is sunny and warm, and I decided it was time. Stinkerbelle and I got ourselves ready and pulled out the old faithful jogging stroller, and decided it was time to go for The Big Walk. To Planet Bean.

Now, I used to walk a lot. A LOT. Some days, I did 10 km with a contented Baby Stinkerbelle cruising along, sometimes napping. But as she has grown up and gotten busier and more independent, stroller walks are less and less frequent. She still enjoys them, but nowadays she’d rather be DOING something. Like walking, for example. Or going to a park, or playing with friends, or any one of a number of activities she was too little to do in previous summers.

But I set today up as an adventure, a walk to someplace new. A Coffee Shop. Where Mommy Could Buy Coffee and Stinkerbelle Could Have A Cookie.

There’s a cookie at the end of this walk? Dude. She was ALL IN.

So off we went.

It was sunny and lovely. But it is also a warm day, and I was feeling the heat. About a third of the way into our walk, we encountered our first obstacle. With no forewarning, we came upon some construction-type guys digging up the sidewalk on the corner of Busy Commuter Street and Major Thoroughfare. The sidewalk on which we had to walk, else we would be walking in traffic. Hm.

You could have put up a SIGN, dudes.

Anyway, no problem. There’s a crosswalk at the corner, so we waited for the light and crossed to the opposite side of the street. This was actually a good thing, because by this time I was getting warm from the sunshine and the street was shaded for a few hundred metres.

We carried on, to the next crosswalk, and crossed back across the busy lanes of traffic. Oh! More shade! Huzzah. As we trundled along in the shade, Stinkerbelle chatted happily. I have no clue what was said, however, because the traffic noise was loud enough to drown out her little girl voice. Oh well. I just interjected “Oh?” and “Really?” and “Yes” into the conversation periodically, and she seemed satisfied.

I began to feel the heat, and the tired. It’s about 3.5 km there and back, which in years past would have been hardly anything at all. But I’m out of walking trim, and my legs were noticing. And I was getting warm.

And we rounded a bend, and there it was. A chorus of angels sang and light shone down from the heavens. Coffee. COFFEE. GOOD coffee.

But I was too hot. I thought OMG ALL I WANT IS AIR CONDITIONING AND TO SIT DOWN.

And all Stinkerbelle thought was OMG LET ME OUT OF THIS CHAIR I NEED TO RUN AROUND. ALSO? COOKIE.

So we made our way into the cool shop and I blinked through the cool darkness looking for a menu.

ICED MOCHA COFFEE.

I was happy. We had crossed the finish line. Victory was ours, and to the victors go the spoils! So I got an iced mocha and Stinkerbelle got some sort of hipster organic cookie and juice.

Snacks and drinks in hand, we sat under the shade of a tree in the parking lot and had an impromptu picnic. It was fun. We chatted about the construction going on in the rest of the building — “WHA’S THAT SOUND?” is That Girl’s recent question du jour — and snacked and relaxed.

And then I realized: We still have to walk home.

And Stinkerbelle realized: I still haven’t run around.

So I pulled my out-of-shape carcass upright, and turned for home. I decided to duck down a side street, in the hope that I could let That Girl out of the stroller to walk on the sidewalk where there would be no traffic. As we turned, we saw it at the same time: A PARK. Just 100 m away.

Stinkerbelle began bellowing “PARK! PARK! I NEED TO GO TO THE PARK! I NEED TO GO ON THE SLIIIIIIIDE!” so that there would be NO DOUBT that I, nor anyone within a mile’s radius of the excited preschooler commotion, would know what her wishes were.

So we went to the park. We had crossed the finish line! Victory was Stinkerbelle’s and to the victor goes the spoils! She went down the slides, and swung on the swings, and had a little run around time.

But then, we really REALLY had to face the walk home.

It was hot, and it was long, and the traffic was noisy. AND I forgot about the construction so I actually DID have to walk us out into traffic to get around it because I forgot to cross the street. But although hot and tired, it was nice. I realized how much I had missed walking, even though my muscles were all WTF WHAT IS THIS I DON’T EVEN.

But we made it home. Victory was ours! And this time, the spoils were not as fancy — blowing bubbles for That Girl, and homemade iced coffee for me — but still just as sweet.

And we decided that maybe we would walk to and from school some mornings. And while Stinkerbelle was in school, I would try to walk a bit more, sans stroller.

And be sure to stop off for a coffee as a treat sometimes, too.