Misrepresent

Saturday, I was with my sister and her husband and her baby.  It is a family thing for them to go running together on Saturday mornings.  Er, well, the baby doesn't run.  And actually, I don't know if it's a thing but it was enough of a thing for my sister to tell me to bring running gear.

Anyway, I went with them.  When I found out they were planning on running or biking for 90 minutes, I panicked and offered to take over the care of the stroller (and baby) and the water and the car keys, of course.

The result was that I jogged along at a snail's pace pushing the baby stroller on this biking/running trail.  Meanwhile, my sister ran on ahead and then returned every so often to get a drink of water and check on me and the baby before running on ahead again.

I was pretty sure that it took me 30 minutes to get through each half mile which was about the time that my sister would show up at the stroller again to get a drink of water.  When I told her how slow I was running, she just laughed.  The baby slept for most of the run but about halfway through, she woke up and started chattering in her baby talk.  So I would talk back to her, "Wow, that's so interesting.  Really?  Are you sure?  That's hilarious."  Which got me some weird looks from some bikers and runners but no more odd than the looks I got when I was reviewing Japanese vocabulary.

However, the most interesting part of the run was how other people treated me.  Whenever someone passed, they would make a point to glance into the stroller to make sure there really was a baby there or perhaps to simply check out how adorable she was.  People who passed me by going in the opposite direction would look up from the stroller to give me a nod as if to say, "Good for you, getting out after having that baby."  Some of them would even glance over my figure as if to gauge how I was progressing in my post-baby body.  One biker even congratulated me, "Way to go, Momma."

I just smiled and passed the compliment onto the real mom who was almost literally running circles around me.

But sure, let them believe that I gave birth to a baby who is as adorable as they get.  Sure, let them believe that I take care of that baby and can soothe her to sleep and still manage to find time to get in my exercise.  Sure, let them believe that the reason I was running so slowly was because I was getting back into shape after going through labor.

I'll take whatever misdirected compliments I can get.  :)  

Here is my niece, exhausted and in need of a nap, with her pacifier and bear.  

Any compliments she got were well deserved, right?  I love her so.