Eno River Walk (and Wade)

Exercising after every meal can get tricky—there's clean up and kid stuff and so much else to do. Sometimes I hop on the exercise bike because that way I don't have to get the kids ready and drag them along with me on a walk. Other times the thought of hopping on the bike one more time kills me so I get the kids ready and drag them along with me on a walk.

I'm still high risk and will be until I deliver, but I'm to the point now (I'm not going to have a micro-preemie and am almost to the point where Benjamin was born) where my doctors are encouraging me to exercise again...a lot because of the diabetes. A lot like three times a day for a half hour.

I will admit that I'm a little worried about the message this is sending to my children ("I ate, therefore I must now bike/walk for a half hour,") because I'm not sure that's a healthy message to be broadcasting so we talk a lot about how my body isn't processing sugar and I'm not exercising to burn off calories or to loose weight or to look better; I'm doing it to keep myself and the baby healthy.

Because I've had gestational diabetes my risk of developing type two diabetes is higher than it would be otherwise. I told Andrew that I knew why that was. It's because they take these poor women who are in their third trimester of pregnancy and restrict their diet and tell them to work out three times a day when all they want to do is eat a bowl of ice cream and take a nap. After this baby comes, I swear I'm going to eat an ice cream cone and then I'm just going to sit there and let it digest on its own. And that's why we're at higher risk for developing type two diabetes. Because this is torture. That's why.

Anyway, today was one of those days when I couldn't fathom getting on the bike again. Last night I had the hardest time getting through my workout after dinner. I kept checking my timer.

"Has it been a half hour yet? Only three minutes?! Okay—I can do this."

I thought that a good night's rest would have me all set to go today, but my post-breakfast bike ride was much the same. Ugh. So after lunch the kids and I got ready to go for a hike.

"Us go hiking in the 'oods?" Benjamin asked.

"Yes, buddy. We're going to go hiking in the woods."

"'At's not a good idea!" Benjamin said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"'Ere's lotsa scary things in the 'oods!"

"There's not a lot of scary things in these woods," I assured him. Just ticks and poison ivy and copperheads, mostly. Other than that, they're all good.

The first thing we saw was a gigantic turtle sunning itself on a log. I swear it was as big as my head.

We hiked down to the Eno River and the kids wanted to get in right away, but I told them we had to go on a hike first do I could get my blood sugar down. Priorities, priorities.

So we went on a hike. The kids always want to take the trail right beside the river but it's too cliff-like and makes me nervous.

"I can't go that way when I'm pregnant, with Benjamin," I said, meaning that I didn't want to go that way with Benjamin while pregnant.

"Mom," Rachel said, looking at me like I was all kinds of crazy, "You're not pregnant with Benjamin. You're pregnant with Zoë."

"Right," I explained. "You didn't hear my comma. I don't want to go that way with Benjamin when I'm pregnant. He just hasn't been listening well and I can't go running over cliffs after him, so we'll take the gentler path."

They were fine with that.

They were most happy when I said that, yes, our hike was finished and we could go exploring along the river. Would you believe that this is our third year living here and our first time stepping foot in the river? For some reason rivers make me nervous, even though I grew up swimming in a river (or perhaps because I grew up swimming in a river). But I survived the day and so did the kids so we'll probably do it again...but maybe when there's a second adult present because I'm really not very quick on my feet recently (waddle, waddle) and I do worry about one of the children misstepping and me not getting there fast enough.

The water was a little too cold at first so the children were a little timid...

...but that didn't last long. Soon the water felt just fine and the kids were getting braver and braver about what they'd try, though they still did their best to stay dry (for a while).

Benjamin favourite thing was splashing in the water:

As well as finding shells at the bottom of the river bed (he calls them "Captain Hook Shells"):



Every now and then he could convince the girls to splash with him, but not often.




The girls were too busy exploring:

Every now and then when Benjamin got tired of splashing by himself, he'd follow along behind the girls:

But keeping up is hard to do when you're half as tall as everyone else, so Benjamin spent a lot of time wading around boring ol' me while his sisters had fun together.

It's hard to say who had more fun, really.

I made Rachel take a picture of me so I could prove that I went in, too:

Really that picture proves nothing (though it was a good shot for a seven-year-old photographer) so I took a picture of my feet, too. The kids dared me to sit down in the river with them but I told them I didn't want to drive home soaking wet (which is proof positive that I'm getting old).

Oh, and Miriam spotted a turtle swimming around with us! This one was just a little guy, about the size of my hand.

By the end of the afternoon we were all wet and covered with muck (which is proof positive that a lot of fun was had by all):