( ENSPIRE Community Spotlight ) The Fisher-Price Foot Race in NYC and Found Myself Thinking About the Toy I Loved as a Little Girl
ENSPIRE Contributor: Jeannie James
When I was a little girl, I played with a Fisher-Price Chatter Telephone. I can still picture that phone. So when I brought my son, Noah, to the first Fisher-Price Mini Marathon on October 27, I expected a little nostalgia. What caught me by surprise was how I felt when people smiled at my boy. I came to Union Square Park to cover a story for ENSPIRE. Within minutes, I was simply Noah’s mom, glad that other people were as happy to see him there as I was.
Ahead of the New York City Marathon, Fisher-Price teamed up with The Mom Walk Collective to give the city’s youngest racers a course of their own. It stretched all of 26.2 feet across the park’s North Plaza. Peloton instructor and mom of two Robin Arzón joined the morning’s activities, which included a stretch session, a sign-making station for families and a chance to try Fisher-Price’s Musical Penguin and Moves with You Turtle walkers.
From an adult’s perspective, 26.2 feet sounds like such a short distance. From a mom’s perspective, I know how much can happen in the space between where a child stands and where he wants to go. That’s what I appreciated about the way Fisher-Price planned this morning. The children had the starting line, and the grown-ups even had a place to make them signs. For once, the whole event ran at their pace.
As a former foster mom and now Noah’s mom, I’ve come to love both sides of play. Back when I picked up that Chatter Telephone, all I knew was that I wanted to play with it again. Now I get to watch Noah figure out what holds his attention. And that morning, I got to enjoy him in the company of other moms who understood why something as ordinary as a few steps could be worth gathering for.
As a single mom, I have days when everything feels like mine to carry. That’s why it meant so much to be invited somewhere with Noah and know the invitation was genuinely for both of us. He could play. I could enjoy being his mom. And because The Mom Walk Collective helped bring us together, there were other mothers right there to share in that joy.
I’d been looking for a place to write about my life with Noah when my longtime friend Ese Ofurhie, ENSPIRE’s founder and publisher, thought of us for this story. I understood her choice that morning. ENSPIRE makes room for people whose stories deserve attention. At Union Square, those people were little enough to use a toy walker. They were also the mothers beside them, who knew just how much each small milestone meant.
I’m grateful to Ese for trusting us to cover the event, to Jovana Jenkins and Hilda Gomez at Hunter PR for welcoming us, and to our Franny, who keeps showing up for Noah. Someday, when my son is old enough to understand how short 26.2 feet really is, I’ll tell him about his morning at the Mini Marathon. The detail I hope I never forget is how many people smiled at him before he had to do a thing.
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