Walking to School

I have discovered that I have a 50 degree range in temperatures in which I will walk Edith to school.

We live about a half mile away from Edith's school, and we walk more often than drive. In the last days of summer, however, I realized that the trek was too miserable if the mercury reached the mid-80s. And last week, when the morning temperatures turned frigid, I found out that 32 degrees is my bare minimum. So that means we walk if the temperature is roughly between 32 and 82 degrees.

Paul takes her to school a morning or two per week. Occasionally I'll time errands so that I have the car out just in time to drive home from school. And once or twice we've been late enough that we didn't have time to walk. (We've never been late for school or pick-up -- just too late to walk.) And rain always means the car!

But I enjoy the walk. I get two miles of exercise each day, and it's a great time to talk to the kids. Nowadays we watch for Halloween decorations and pumpkins. And Atticus is turning into quite the walker and rarely complains about the trip.

I'm not looking forward to the snow and the dead of winter, when I'm sure we'll be enjoying the comforts of the car's heating system much more. But I'm glad we've gotten into this routine -- especially since this is the first year of up to eight years that our family could have a kid at this school.