The Wonderful "W"

I have been walking my kids around the neighborhood since Timmy was a baby. We don't have a particularly large neighborhood. There is one "big block" and one "small block". I started walking with Timmy back when we lived in Illinois. I didn't have a car and I had to get out of the house somehow. Back then I just walked to get out. I never really thought of it as exercising. No wonder I quickly lost the baby weight from him. I was walking several miles a day. Then we moved here. I still walked, but not nearly as far. I remember taking him around this neighborhood and he would point out all the cats. Then when the leaves began to fall on the very few trees that do that here - he would pick them up. He soon grew out of walking with me. Probably around the time he was 4 or so. I then began walking with my then friend, Beth. We would rollerblade twice a week and walk a couple more times a week. Along came Savannah. Rollerblading felt like h*ll to me after I had her. I have no idea why it could turn that way on me, but it did. I never got back into the swing of it. I walked with Savannah at the park near my other house for the first year of her life. Then we moved back here and bought my mom's house. So began my walks around the same neighborhood again. She stayed in her stroller much longer than Timmy. Pretty much till she was 6 and I had Sebastian. Then she graduated to riding her scooter around with me. She would point out those same cats and pick up those same leaves for all those years. When I had Sebastian, he was a quirky little guy. He didn't like to walk around the neighborhood twice. I could only manage one time around without having to bring him home and drop him off with Tim. I would then continue my walk. As he got a little older, he started to enjoy the walks like the other kids did. Up until this summer, he mostly stayed in the stroller. I had him ride his scooter around a few times just to wear him out for bedtime. He never is really tired at bedtime. On these walks with him, he would find the cats too. And now a few leaves have fallen and he picks them up too. I flash back in my mind to other walks with Timmy and Savannah. They were standing by the same tree and found leaves. The same people who had cats back then, have cats now. Same driveways, same feeling. My other babies grew up and no longer want to find cats and leaves with me. Then Sebastian did something the other two never did. He found the Wonderful "W". Actually, he found FOUR of them. At first they look to be an M until you turn the way you should. They are W for water lines. I would have just walked passed them and let them go unnoticed. Not Sebastian. He saw them and decided they meant something. What? They meant you are supposed to jump in a complete circle on top of them! Then he tells me with all of his heart that it is "Your turn!". Then I jump up and down on the W's. Of course, what else am I to do? The very first time, I wasn't so sure I wanted to jump up and down on every single W we would be sure to find on our walks. Then I remembered that they all grow up. They don't walk with you and say "Meow, meow" or "Look, airpwain!" or "One more Weaf, pease!". They grow up and all of a sudden Wonderful W's on the sidewalk are just markers for water lines that you just walk on and forget. Not right now though, not for Sebastian. Wonderful W's mean some sort of game that he and mommy play. Right now, they are fun and exciting and amazing. So, if you see a 35 year old woman stopping to jump in a circle on every single W on your block... just smile and know she is taking in every second of her last little baby!