Room to Run, Effects of on Infants (See Also Scenery, Change of)

In the "states of matter" section in my high school physics book, one of the distinctions of gases from liquids was that, when unconstrained, they do not occupy a fixed volume, but instead expand to fill whatever space they can occupy.

I'm going to have to look this up to confirm it, but Cheeky may be a gas, too. When taken out of our little apartment and put into a bigger space (say an ex-urban home) she somehow manages to fill the space. Or at least she tries.

With the weather improving we made an early excursion to NoFo this weekend, hoping to break the repetitive monotony of subway life and the same four walls.  It was a quick trip (by LIE standards) but we made plans to visit Oodgie's college roommate, who has a place out there.  She's got a big place (at least by our standards...you all probably live in bigger places) and enough kids to justify a full child-proofing.  After listening to Elmo's World for the full two-hour drive (interrupted by a delicious quesadilla burger ...got to love suburbia) any opportunity to give Cheeky a place to run around seemed like a good idea.

And run she did.  RUN RUN RUN

I'm actually quoting her:  "RUN RUN RUN!"

While the ladies were in one room catching up, and the gentlemen of the house were in other encouraging the older kids' hand-eye coordination, Cheeky had mapped out a roughly circular track engineered to maximize velocity while encouraging periodic pit stops to hug a giant Hello Kitty doll.  "RUN RUN RUN!"  There she is cutting through the kitchen.  "RUN RUN RUN!"  She just passed the stairs.  "RUN RUN RUN!"  Yep, kitchen again.  I seriously thought she was going to turn into butter.

And so it went.  I don't know exactly how long she was at it (at least long enough for me to look like an amateur trying to shred "YYZ" after their six-year old owned "Monkey Wrench") but I'm fairly certain she ran straight through dinner, and would have continued straight on 'til midnight had her little body not finally realized it hadn't trained with Robert Cheruiyot.  The collapse was instant and final, and we were on our way home within minutes of it's conclusion.

I love to see the kid with so much energy, but I feel bad she doesn't have the space to expend it.  God knows I can't keep up with her.  If this keeps up this summer I'll be crushing sedatives into her juice-boxes.

(BTW, this kept running through my mind while watching her, although her version had more squealing)

Comments

[TheOtherCW]

Wait for the comment....wait for it....

[Peter]

We got a loop at my house. Merry's record is 87 times around. I know because she makes me count.

[WCG]

In keeping with family expecations: There is plenty of room to run in the backyard and two four-legged companions to join her. She should give that a try.

[TheOtherCW]

And there it is.