The kid in the baby jogger leaned her head back as far as it would go and peered at me through the plastic window in the red sun visor: “Do you want to hear a story?” she asked.
“Sure,” I say to my 3 1/2–year-old daughter, knowing I’m about to go on some mesmerizing trip. Oh, the stories she tells while we’re out on these runs.
“See the thunder birds and the lightning birds high in the sky? They’re high as the clouds. Do you see them?” I think this is what she says. I really have no idea if I’m hearing this right. I’m struggling to push her and the jogger — a combined 50+ pounds that feel like they’ve attracted double the gravity — and I’m trying not to succumb to heat stroke while bobbing and weaving around cars. Could be I misheard her, or even that I’m hallucinating.
I nod my head and tell her, “Yeah, wow, I see them, you bet. That’s cool.” Then I think how embarrassing it would be if she’s only asked me for a snack.
And on the story goes about thunder birds and lightning birds flying this way and talking about that.
I can’t help but smile.
This is how the two of us spend our miles on these runs. Father pushing and daughter taking it all in, and talking it all up.
Sometimes there are jokes: “Knock nock,” she says.
“Who’s there?” I reply.
“Aunt Susie.”
“Aunt Susie who?” I ask.
“Still Aunt Susie.”
If I laugh, she tells it again.
Or she grows dissatisfied with our progress and begins barking at me like a jockey egging on her horse: “Faster. FASTER!”
For some reason I oblige, digging my feet deeper down into the asphalt in a failed attempt to get traction.
Silly ideas pop into my head, like how it would be fun to push the jogger up the side of a sharp driveway that forms a little ramp. The jogger leaps and the child inside roars her approval. “That was fun,” she manages to get out between laughs and I quickly understand why I’m doomed: “Let’s do that again.”
For the next 400 yards I hit every driveway, sweat pouring down my face and stinging my eyes.
“Your daddy is so sweaty,” I tell her. She looks up at me through the plastic window and says, “I’m not sweaty.” I get the feeling that’s her way of saying I’m obviously not working hard enough if she hasn’t even managed to work up a sweat. Not while sitting there in the cozy confines of her wheeled chariot.
We search out horses pulling carriages as we roll through downtown and along the bayfront. Their names are always “Pepper,” whether they’re speckled, brown or white.
She tells me when I see a horse that I have to yell out, “HORSE!” And I do this. People look at us funny, this sweaty man who appears to be dying and who keeps screaming, “Horse! There! See it? It’s Pepper! Quick!”
When my kidney pops out, they all quickly turn away.
Or we stop at the fort, which I think will be a welcome timeout from the run, until I realize this is a chance for my child to stretch her legs, and mine, by running us up and down the hills. She does this until our knees buckle and we pant like rabid dogs. Still, she isn’t beet red and parched like me.
When she tires slightly, she marches me off to play pirates on the pirate ship — a wood platform that overlooks the bay with stairs leading up. NOT STAIRS! While the pirates I knew were always bloodthirsty ship pillagers, the pirates we play rescue imaginary turtles from the moat. We then ask if they want to come join us for a run up and down the hills. I wilt.
At some point I get her back in the jogger and we return to the run, singing and telling jokes all the way. Honestly, I don’t know how I make it home. I all-but crawl the last block, my chariot driver still commanding me to go, “faster. FASTER!”
She hops from the jogger, looking rested and refreshed. I curl up in the bushes and cry. Yet, there is no better experience — no better way to bond with my kid. Now if only I could figure out what those thunder and lighting birds were really up to.