Training Log Archive: Edmund

After my coolie delivered me to the blue ute we drove to Lake Sepping and we found lots and lots of people there including Auntie Jane, Cousin Ebony, Grandad and Granny. Mum and Dad had said we were going to do a race and it was really exciting to see Ebony there too. At 10 o'clock Mum, Dad and I went to the back of the group and then someone yelled "Go" and off everyone ran. Except me, I had a little cry as this was a New Thing and they often make me cry the first time.

We walked a bit and then Mum pointed out the little orange flags and so I ran to it. And the next one. And the next one. We were at the back and could hardly see anyone but then wayy up ahead we saw Auntie Jane and my big cousin Ebony - and I ran and ran to try and catch up. Mum couldn't keep up - she says she had to answer the phone as she was on call but I know she was struggling a bit, especially now she barely fits the bath. As we caught up to Ebony they stopped to talk to me - but I ran straight past laughing an smiling. Dad thought this was really funny!

Ebony must be fairly competitive as she went past us and then every time I got close she'd run ahead. But then, being a silly girl she stopped to look at flowers or something and we got a Long Way Ahead. It was meant to be a 2km run but turned out to be 2.7km - but around the 2km mark I didn't feel like doing as much running so no matter how many different ways Mum and Dad suggested I might want to run for a bit I just said "No, I not want to run". Then Auntie Jane and Ebony caught up and even that didn't make me want to run. Dad sneakily said to them to go past, and as soon as they did I ran and ran and ran and we finished just behind them.

I like running! I was holding around 8:10min/km when I was running too.

Another hard day in the garden, helping Jecko and my other mates build the big wall. Jecko drove his yellow excavator and the other man had his red digger but I had my yellow digger with the wheels on. Diggers with wheels on are better than ones with caterpillar tracks. I told the man that but he said he thought caterpillar tracks were better because they can go ANYwhere. Whatever.
When the men had their morning tea I had a banana too and then mum (horrible mum) dragged me and my digger away in the grey-car to go to work, where I took control of the toy corner in the waiting room for an hour (do you know, there were OTHER CHILDREN trying to play with the toys!)
At the end of the day Jecko and my mates leave their diggers in the ever-expanding sandpit in next-door's garden, but I bring my digger inside and give it a bath in the sink, because all diggers Must Wash Down Daily and then Dry on the Dishrack.

C • Work practices 7

School holidays are over now and mum and I went back to the montessouri playgroup. I had told mum that there wouldn't be any dinosaurs because of the rain, so imagine my surprise when the lady presented me with a whole basketful! I spent the whole morning teaching dinosaurs how to swim in a pond I built in the sandpit. Dinosaurs are good at swimming. William told me i was doing it wrong, but he says that about everything - he has the same two-year-old attitude as me. The dinosaurs were very muddy after that and had to have a bath in the sink, which was a fine excuse to avoid joining in any silly group activities like singing and eating morning tea.

Dad got up early today and we made some toast and practised saying "Happy Mother's Day!" one hundred times. Whatever that means. Then he said I had to draw a picture for mum. I decided to draw her a map so I drew some car-roads and some blue-water and also a "pond for ducks go in there" on the back of an envelope.
It is a great map. It is not as good as the cycling map of albany that I read every morning but Dad said it is pretty good for a first effort, pretty much as useful as Mum's first mapping effort anyway.

So by the time we got upstairs with the toast I had forgotten what I was supposed to say so I demanded to eat mum's toast and chocolates instead. She really appreciated her map but didn't give me any of her toast. She said this is the one day of the year when she gets to eat her own breakfast. Usually I eat everyone's breakfast. Except Toh-by's biskits and the fish food of course.

So because it was mother's day I had to take mum for a long walk. Dad got out of it by saying he had to go to work (sure) so he dropped us in the middle of nowhere and off we went into the bush in the rain. I burst into tears at first but when we turned the first corner there was a huuuuuuge slab of graniterock and a view of the harbour! I could see a big ship and woodchips and lots of leeeetle boats and also cars on the car-road.
After that I cheered up and with only 2 bananas and 8 cruskits and a large pear I managed to walk and walk and walk. We saw tadpoles in puddles and did lots of plyometric jumps up big steps and climbed onto graniteboulders and had a great time. Just when walking was starting to lose its attraction and the cruskits ran out, we found ourselves on a car-road and there was dad! He took us out for pancakes and coffee which was a far more sensible thing to do in the rain than mum's nutty ideas about nature, if you ask me.

In the next-door garden
They were taking down our wall
When the driveway turned quite sandy
And the truck couldn't move at all

So they brought a red digger
That had caterpillar tracks
And some ropes and a chain
Attached to the back

And Jecko in his yellow excavator
Came to help them pull the load
And they pulled the blue truck
All the way out to the road

Then they flattened the next-door garden
While they dismantled our wall
And Jecko got his chainsaw
And the trees began to fall

And our garden bed got demolished
And its dodgily-constructed drains
And all the bits went in the blue-truck
While I played with my trains

And later on the blue man
and his truck went back
And the tired yellow excavator
Slept out the back

Jecko took his chainsaw
And said he couldn't stay
But that he would come back tomorrow
To have another play

So I told my mum
That I clearly can't go to sleep
Or go to daycare tomorrow
Or even to the beach

Until Jecko and his digger
Finish digging up the sand
Even if it takes a month
And mum should understand

(With apologies to my favourite book The Little Yellow Digger)

C • awesome! 6

MTBjen & Tooms accompanied me on a walk today but I ran a few sections. Mum thought it was weird when I ran up the two hills on the walk but didn't want to run down them. Dad seemed happy enough with me though? We walked on the gravelroad and then on the track Dad runs on and then past the house with the goat to the beach with the pelicans and oystercatchers. I was carrying a map with me and every so often I'd stop and practice my map reading just like I've seen Mum do it - I'd unfold it, stare at it intently and then wander in a slightly curved path away from where I was meant to be walking. Once a nice man with a dog asked Mum and Dad if I belonged to them as I was a long way behind them. Mum wanted to see the map I was reading, it was one Dad had earlier at Bunnings. It was a piece of white paper folded into 4 with a supermarket shopping list on one quarter, some drawings of the chook shed dad was building most of the weekend, and a list of stuff to buy from Bunnings. But it's all practicing reading on the move - although Mum said I wasn't very good at it as I had to keep stopping. I heard her tell Dad that when she thought I couldn't hear. I'll show her. Toh-by came too. Much as reading the map in Dad's blue car is fun (Dad, put map on... peeeez?) this is Real.