Her New Kicks

                                  

Last night I was laying in bed with L, after she had one of the biggest melt-downs in her life.

We had to drag her away, kicking and screaming, from a wonderful family gathering and things just went south from that point on.

We came home and I could not come up with anything better than to give her a dose of Benedryl to make her calm and go to sleep.

She was so out of it, she almost threw up, kicked, screamed, told us the harshest words and ....

Boy it sure was something. I have NEVER seen my Lillie like that before, never.

Kind of broke my heart to hear her angry words and see her act that way.

I laid down with her to calm her down and we just chatted. Somehow we ended there:

M: You know what I used to do when I wasn't feeling happy or wanted to get away?

L: What Mama?

M: Run!

L: Away?

M: NO!!! Go running. I would put on my running shoes and just go, run, run, run.

L: Did that work?

M: I became a pretty good runner :)

L: Can we go running?

M: SURE! Tell you what; you go to sleep now and get a good rest and tomorrow morning we both gear up and jog around the block. Deal?

L: Deal!

... and then she finally closed her eyes and fell asleep.

So this morning, at the first sunlight, she rolled over (I had let both crash with us), pulled away my covers and said "LET'S GO!!!"

I crawled out of bed (it's never a good night when you sleep with both Ls in one bed), pulled out my old running pants, thermal shirt and my paint covered running shoes and off we went.

And what do you know; the kid jogged around the entire block and chatted while running.

I haven't ran in years and it took my breath away by the end of our street but she just kept going. 

Hands up, breathing right and just chit-chatting.

So when we came around the corner and saw our house I said "end-sport" (german for give it your all) and she took off like a swarm of bees was after her.

She was smiling and happy and proclaimed she wants to do that very day now :)

I took a shower, threw her in the car and (despite my vow to NOT enter a mall during Thanksgiving weekend) took her to a running store to buy her proper running shoes. The Darth Vader boots will not be sufficient for daily running.

Half through the day she pulled another of these new fits and I had to drag her out of the store, leaving my milk and bread in the cart. She was again totally beside herself, just complete melt-down-mode.

So this time she got GROUNDED. 

For the first time ever! 

We have never had to use such measures but right now she seems to be needing some "stronger" guidance :(

After both of us had calmed down, Pat was with Lulu at the store to pick up what I had to leave behind, we had another chat and then she said "Maybe I should go running again."

So we got out the new "kicks" and went for a second time today for a run. This time with Dork and we ran the LONG way. 

Again she ran all the way through, chatted a lot at the beginning but then she got really quiet and all I could hear was heavy breathing.

We came around the corner, she looks at me and says "end sport Mama" and off she took ... zoom ...

By the time she went to bed she had sore legs and said she'd never run again but there is no out now, I bought her awesome shoes ... she is in it for good!

I massaged her legs and she fell asleep while I was rubbing her little muscles.

I am sure the running won't prevent further FITS but hopefully it'll give us some bonding time and maybe an outlet for some bottled up grumpiness ....

Either way I am damn proud of her for running so well!

Can't wait for tomorrow morning!!!