Growing Pains

At Carter's insistence, I woke him up early today so he could go running with me. The plan was to walk a bit to warm up, then run at a slow pace as far as he could handle it, then walk to cool down. All totaled, it would be just one mile for this first day.

Well we accomplished the first two things. We got up early (by 5:30) and we walked to warm up. As soon as we broke into a jog, though, he shouted out that his knees hurt. For real?! I wasn't gonna go all drill sergeant on him, so I said we could just walk. But fast.

When we got toward the end, he did try jogging a bit and it felt a little better but still painful. I was trying to have him pinpoint the source of pain. We had stretched out good beforehand but I figured it could still be shin splints. But he was pointing all around his knee. Rather than throw out more guesses, I said he should ask Cheryl the fitness guru at Kidz Camp.

I caught up with her later and she said he's basically experiencing "growing pains." The bad news is that the pain will be here awhile, but come and go depending on what he is doing. The good news is that he is growing! I expect he'll match my towering 5'1" frame in no time!

I was trying to recall if I ever went through growing pains. Did you? I suppose with my height, I didn't have cause to experience them for long.

Nowadays, my "growing pains" hit my wallet more than anything -- when I can no longer zip my jeans and I have to buy a new pair or when I am investing more money on some new fitness craze I'm sure to stick with this time.

So now we've got Jim dealing with his back pain (going twice a day to the chiropractor still). Carter dealing with growing pains. And me, I'm just being a pain as usual.

Ouch.