So this is why kids aren't supposed to use treadmills!

Okay, I hope that for those of you who know me well, would know that I'm not usually a slacker parent, one who doesn't care or pay attention to what my kids are doing, and for sure know that I don't beat my children. Mary, I know you'll read this and get chills up your spine because I've too have seen some of those legal attorney pictures myself (she worked for a fitness place as a legal assistant to the attorney and saw many, many photos of some nasty injuries while exercising) and know that I should not ever let my child use a treadmill - but....but... I got the "park avenue eyes" (Mom that's for you).

Now that my apology to Mary is taken care of, we'll begin. Beavercreek Elementary is doing a program called Shape Up Oregon. The kids can cross off one segment of their trip across Oregon by exercising 30 minutes. You can cross off up to 3 segments a day. Those of you who know Redden know he's an over acheiver and would settle for nothing less than 3 segements a day. Anyway, the weather here has been absolutely horrible as far as rain and hail is concerned. He's been having a hard time getting outside to be able to cross of that last segment of the day. The day before yesterday it was raining so he couldn't play basketball, ride bikes or run around the yard playing soccer, so he asked if he could run circles in the loop of the house, so I let him :( Bad idea! Talk about kaos at dinner time. Yesterday he ran into the same problem and asked if he could get on the treadmill. In the past the treadmill has been absolutely 100% off limits to my children. Where things have been bad outside and because Redden had given me "puppy dog eyes"and promised to be careful, I decided to go ahead and lay out some rules of the treadmill. We wear socks and shoes, you are not allowed to go over 2 mph and no horsing around. He agreed. I watched for a few minutes and it looked as if everything was going good. 28 minutes into the 30 minute journey I hear a sad screaming/cry. I go into the bedroom to find that Austin said he had "saved" Redden who was pinned to the wall behind the treadmill. Come to find out Redden has taken off his shirt because he was hot. Either his legs turned into jello or he tripped. The belt pushed him to the back against the wall and trapped his legs and the treadmill continued to spin because I hadn't fastened the safety strap to him. So, it was spinning and burning his back as he was trying to move a million different ways to try to stand up but couldn't. Poor kid, refused to take a shower this morning, refused to put on a shirt, refused to put on a backpack, to ride the bus, or to play outside at recess. Needless to say I took him to school to discuss this and a few other items with his teacher and ended up volunteering the morning there.

Today we saw a break in the rain. Haleluja!!

The Aftermath...The picture does no justice.