Of all our children, Jake is a wiry young fellow. Something about him is wildly energetic, and I've always felt that when he becomes grumpy at home, it's because he's bored and needs to stretch his legs.
Last night, after his friend had gone home for the evening, I noticed Jake looking grumpy and lost. Rather than allow him to wallow in his bad mood, I told him to put on his coat and we'd go for a walk. We live on the edge of town, and as we leave our street, there's a little loop road that leads us out of town and back in again. A short walk of about an hour in total.
After finally, after wrestling the reluctant youngster into his coat, we left the house. There was a moment of near-mutiny when he realised we weren't taking the car, but Jake's generally quite pliable and we started off on our walk.
