A Hiking We Will Go

Hiking is one of my favorite things. Before children, Dave and I hiked and backpacked across the entirety of Isle Royale as well as the length of Pictured Rocks. Carrying those heavy backpacks was merely training for carrying children when we continued hiking after having children. AJ is more than capable of hiking on his own and alternates between doing remarkably well and complaining remarkably well. Teddy, on the other hand, has always been carried despite the fact that he is now 6 years old and weighs more than 50 pounds.

I recognize that my years of carrying Teddy for any distance are greatly limited, but I will continue to carry him as long as I'm able to in order to give our family the ability to truly experience the great outdoors. There's so much to be seen that can't be reached in even the sturdiest of wheelchairs.

Teddy is capable of walking, running even and climbing darn near anything. (Seriously, the other day I walked in the garage to see him perched on the back bumper of the Chevy Equinox holding onto the rear windshield wiper and attempted to use that to brace his knee to climb up the back side of the vehicle.) However, he falls constantly. So much, in fact, that we don't even pay attention to him falling most of the time because it's such an ordinary part of every day. He also lacks any sense of safety awareness and seems to gravitate to ditches and ravines because they're more fun.

So he's had very few opportunities to attempt hiking on an actual trail, but he's continuing to improve his balance and want more independence. On Friday I wanted to take the boys hiking at High Cliff State Park for one last summer memory that would be an excuse to eat ice cream for lunch. I decided to give Teddy a hiking stick and see what happened. He was extremely excited and took off in the opposite direction, so I turned him around and steered him past all the vehicles because I didn't want him to scratch one with that weapon of his. Yeah, a hiking stick isn't for balance. It's for swinging wildly, jabbing and poking. It's way more fun that way.

Teddy set off with an excited pace!

We made it onto the trail with Teddy leading the way part of the time. He is easily distracted by other people, so I had to redirect his attention to follow AJ. He thought the big rocks were really fun to poke, touch and inspect. He also liked tapping different trees with his stick and whacking all the foliage along the trail with it. The trail turned uphill and got much steeper, narrower and rockier. The steepness and narrowness were fine for Teddy, but the rocks got to be too much that he kept falling every few feet.

4 cars in the entire parking lot, and he nearly ran into them.

 So, I loaded him up, and we continued on our hike in our usual fashion with me as Sherpa for Teddy. But I was impressed that he made it 4/10ths of a mile on his own two feet, especially with a portion of that being rougher trail. I think that if we stayed on the more level trail that he'd have been able and interested in going further. It's something we'll have to continue to practice and try because he's interested in it, and I'm interested in not carrying a squirming 6-year-old for the entire hike always. (It's much easier to carry the same weight as Teddy that isn't trying to escape and flail and steal my hiking stick and stab me with the stolen hiking stick.)

I was surprised by some of the comments when others heard of our adventure about being a great mom and giving Teddy this opportunity, but it's really self serving. Hiking is one of my absolute favorite things to do, and I want to share that love with both my children. I want to continue to do it as Teddy grows older, even if our pace is slower and we have to poke every rock and tree. Nature soothes the soul ... and we all need that.