The autumnal winds whipped the little angel's hair as she rode her jogging stroller with glee.  "Duck!" she cried, as we rounded the bend by Loose Park pond, designed by someone famous, whose name I can't remember, but who also designed some other nameless but famous pond in New York City.

As we approached the playground, I realized I had committed a fatal error by letting it come into her eyesight.  The ancients believed in something called "eye beams," which were supposedly like (insert Austin Powers voice) lasers, and emitted directly from the eyeballs themselves in a straight line.  You can find them referenced in several poems that I had to study in graduate school. I can't remember the names of the uninformed poets.

The little angel gestured frantically for the slides.  "No," I said.  "We'll play next time around, I promise.  Well, if it doesn't rain."  I felt a little guilty for promising anything, as the skies looked rather forbidding.

The little angel tried to crawl out of the jogging stroller while it was in motion.  "Keep arms, fingers and all other appendages inside the stroller," I called, puffing away.  "Playground next time!"

"Nyo!" she cried.  "Nyo, nyo!"  She held her arms out dramatically to the slides, who wept quietly at her passing.

For an entire mile circuit, she wiggled and whined.  "Nyo!" she wailed to the winds.  "Nyo!"

"Next come the ducks!" I puffed, as fellow joggers looked at me as though I were sticking the little angel with pins for withholding slides.  I could see into their brains.  What a horrible mother!  She obviously always puts her own exercise needs before the slide needs of the child!  The child with no hat on such a windy day!  Stuff it, passersby.

"After the ducks come the slides!" I puffed, as I passed several soccer moms chasing their ten-year-olds away from the ducks. 

"NYO!" cried the little angel.

Finally, we reached the slides again.  I came in for a landing and unstrapped the little angel.  She waddled over to the yellow slide, threw her arms around it, embracing it.  She kissed the plastic and smiled widely at me.  "Yeah!" she cried.

Indeed.

I wonder what she would do if I attempted Pilates in front of her?