A Pirate Walk

We are a one vehicle household. I do not complain, my husband needs to leave at 5am to get to work on time, and that leaves the boys and I to walk to school in the mornings. I actually feel blessed that we live so close to the school (a 15-20 minute walk on most days), and I feel good about reducing our carbon footprint a little. The only time we run into trouble, is when the boys just don't feel like getting out of bed in the morning. There's much less margin for error in our timeline when we have a 20 minute walk with 2 sleepy-headed 2nd graders looming over us. I have tried coaxing, coercing, bribing, and even making up my own ridiculous, supposedly motivating songs to get them moving (the songs usually result in a brief giggle, followed by a very annoyed "please stop singing and rhyming!!"). 3 tardies later, and I was getting a little worried about having to walk them. Nothing seemed to work, they go to bed early enough, so this had much less to do with actual tiredness, as it did just simply finding the willpower to roll out of a cozy, warm, quilt and pillow filled bed.

Hmmm, then one morning an idea came to me. We have been reading Treasure Island before bed every night to the kids, and they are positively enthralled with the world of Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver. A Pirate Walk!! Everyone morning, we set out to explore a new stretch of Treasure Island, with a mission at hand... We have explored The Old Pirate Graveyard looking for clues to Flint's treasure (the Goodyear historic cemetery), we have hiked across Spyglass Hill (A rocky wash off the side of the road), and precariously walked a rickety rope bridge to Skeleton Isle (the crosswalk on a busy street). Our mornings are filled with lots of growls, aye-ayes, and "pirate code". We run, skip, climb, laugh, and walk our way to school, and the boys can't wait to step out the front door! We usually arrive to school 10 minutes early, and as we approach the crossing guard and I hug them and send them off, Max dutifully reminds me to "be a normal mom now and stop talking like a pirate...until tomorrow morning..."