A Family Who Eats Together, Walks Together.

one more beer

New York is a walking town. If you don’t like to walk, seriously don’t come here, you’ll be miserable. Trust me I know. The first time I came I was 16 weeks pregnant with Miss Gremlin. Grand Master D was 3 and we walked everywhere! I was pissed about it though because I wasn’t used to it, I was pregnant, my feet hurt and I was dragging a toddler. Not to mention the fact that the King walks way faster than I do on a normal day, something about leg length and persistence and getting a v12 going.blah blah I don’t even know….. But what happens is, I end up at least 20 feet behind.

I have no problem with other religions at all but I told him I refuse to walk behind him like a muslim wife. It’s bad enough I have to call him the King! (insert eye roll)

Today the kids and I went out. Yesterday it was terrible, rainy and snowy so we stayed in and tved it up! Today they needed some exercise so we decided that a day in Central Park would be lovely. The plan was to catch the train to 72nd st, walk in the park for a bit, kick the footy atround and have a pie from pie face for lunch. We achieved all this and then Grand Master D convinced us to go to Times Square…. We all hate times square, except him. This kid seriously loves it. He always wants to go there….

So there we ended up… elbow to elbow with all the tourists and Hello Kitty, the Naked cowboy, Batman, the Smurfs and Elmo. It was actually the first time I ‘ve been out with the kids and not been worried, looking everywhere and checking. I just knew they were there, we all know how to cross the road and stick together. We had a nice time. I felt relaxed for a change. I think it was that we walked at my pace.. .but I’ll never admit that to the King or Grand Master D 🙂 .

Then we decided it was a good thing to get some new shoes, these kids are both growing like weeds and needed bigger shoes. We stumbled across a friend who suggested a store up on Broadway, a train ride away, so we jumped on the train and bought the shoes just like that. Some nice converse each.( I shan’t bore you with those details)

The weather began to turn so we headed home via the park. After about an hour we realised we weren’t gonna make it, the sky was too black, so we caught the train the last 4 stops home. About 20 blocks. As we came out of the subway it started to rain… so we had timed it all perfectly. We all flopped on the couch, too tired to move after about 5 hours out walking aorund.

But then the King suggested we go out to dinner. Fine with me, I was too tired to cook anyway. So we jumped onthe train again and went back down to almost the exact same place we were at lunch time. We dined on the most exqusite meal and decided to get our dessert on the way home. We often do that. Getting a street treat on the walk home. Yep you heard right… the WALK home. This is something we do quite often, walk through the park after dinner. It’s a great way for the kids to stretch their legs and run off any sugar or soda consumed and it’s nice for us to walk and talk and hold hands while exercising at the same time … Makes drinking that last beer ok.

tree climbing in central park

Now to get a perspective on how long we walked. The restaurant was on 57th. We live on 115th … that’s 50 blocks. 20 blocks is a mile. Put that on top of the 40 blocks we walked today and we have totally exercised our arses off.  Tonight  near the reservoir we saw some raccoons out eating.( I took pictures but they were too dark) In almost the same place we saw Larry David this afternoon! This city never ceases to amaze me. But that’s enough walking for  one day. Tomorrow they can go to the movies and I will stay home 🙂

 

 

Comments 6

  1. I love walking around in NY. Maybe its because I don’t live there.Doing it with family that includes school-aged children always seems like a great idea before you actually do it. I think it has to be the pay-off of bonding and spending time together that makes us forget how trying it was the last time.

    Nowadays I think its even more important than ever to take walks and eat together as a family. It helps with interpersonal communication, get the kids badly needed practice in learning to read body language and other cues they don’t pick up with their eyes and thumbs stuck on four-inch screens. Besides, getting them to do something physical is becoming more of a big deal even for them too.

    I’m really loving the writing style in this blog, Molly. Don’t change a thing… even though I suspect you’ll get some flak.

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  2. Hi Molly,What a great post! The last time I was in NY it was 1999. I remember the train ride, getting lost at Bloomingdales, Central Park. It was such a fun city! Great that you are able to do things like that with the family in the Big Apple! Thanks for linkin with us at the Show Off Blog Party 🙂 Hope to see another great post from you next week!

    Jessica

  3. My husband and I go to NYC once every few months and we walk our butts off…literally!

    One time last year I wore a pedometer and we’d walked 9 miles by 2:00 in the afternoon! It’s crazy, but great exercise, and you don’t notice it as much because there’s so much to see. Of course, my feet notice it….

    We are headed up there in a few weeks and reading about your day made me even more excited!

    I’m visiting from The Wondering Brain blog hop! 🙂

  4. I haven\’t walked in NYC with the family in a long time. We just spent a week in Orlando, walking in the theme parks, which is a whole other matter ~ not fun! This is a great post.Thanks for linking up with Show Off Blog party. We hope you join us again.

    Jules
    A Dose of Jules

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