A Short Hike

             A goal I have for myself as a parent is to sometimes, with purpose, follow my child’s lead 100%. For me, this means taking things at his speed. It means stopping myself from saying things like, “hurry” or “let’s do the next thing” or (worst of all) “I want to…” It means only interfering if someone or something could get hurt.

            When my four-year-old and I set off to take a short hike on the trails around our home I made it a point to revel in the world as he sees it. With this in mind - you can understand how easily a short walk around our neighborhood could turn into an hours-long adventure. Our first big discovery was that the ants who live in our front yard still live in our front yard.

“Those are red ants.” he said. They weren’t but that wasn’t the point.

“I don’t know a lot about ants,” I responded truthfully.

“Red ants bite. Don’t get too close.” he warned.

“What will we do?” I wondered out loud.

“Let’s hop over but don’t step on that crack!”

            After safely avoiding the ants and sidewalk cracks, we stopped so he could pull a dandelion from our yard and make a wish.

“I wish that I can do whatever I want,” he said and followed with a great breath of air blown toward the flower.

            I thought about what a big wish that is. I wondered about the last time I made a wish on a dandelion and believed, with childlike hope, that it could come true. We made it to the end of our driveway and he asked if we could stop to say hi to the spider that lives in our mailbox. I said yes.

“Is he there?”

“Yeah he’s there. Do you want me to lift you up so you can see?”

“Yeah. Oh yeah, hi!” and then, “Should we smoosh him?”

“I don’t like to hurt living things. Some spiders are venomous but this one isn’t. This spider lives in our mailbox and won’t bother us.” I answered calmly and without judgement, the same way I always answer when a child asks me if they can smoosh a bug. This is a conversation we’ve had before so he agreed and nodded thoughtfully. I thought about how sometimes children like to ask the same question again and again to see if the answer will change over time.

            Next, we headed down the street. We made it to a trail head. He stopped to pick up some dirt and gently toss it back down. He picked up a stick and a rock. The rock went in his pocket but the stick stayed in his hand.

“That looks like a good stick.” I mused.

“It’s just right,” he agreed.

            He then made his customary car noises while dragging the stick in the dirt. We saw a squirrel and, shortly after, a rabbit. At one point a plane flew overhead and we both looked up to watch it. We chatted with each other for much of the trail but there were also many moments of calm quiet. There were times when I wanted to pick up the pace but didn’t. There were times when my brain craved the quick dopamine fix that would come from looking aimlessly at my phone. I think it’s okay to acknowledge when we’re human and we can’t be totally in the moment but this wasn’t one of those times - so when my mind wandered, I brought it back to the present. Toward the end of our walk, my son had great luck finding several rolly pollies.

“I’m going to keep this one.”

“One thing I know about rollie pollies is that they live outside.”

“I know. I know a lot about bugs. I’m going to keep the rollie pollie in my firetruck in the back yard.”

“I wonder if it will stay in the firetruck.”

“It’s okay if it doesn’t. It can choose.”

            As we approached our home, I considered his words. So much of this walk was about choice and control. And so much of a child’s life is made up of things that are out of their control. When they go to sleep and wake up, what food is available to them, if and where they go to childcare, what activities or materials are available to them, how much time they can spend doing what brings them joy, and on and on. With this in mind, I celebrated a small window of time in which my son could take his time without anyone rushing him.