Perspective, cont'd.. . .

In keeping with the "perspective" theme, Dave and I have spent many hours over the years talking about all of the things we'd do if we just had someone to keep the kids for a week for us, all of the trips we'll take with/without them when they're older, etc. We love to spend time with them outside, but hiking with 3 kids is quite different than our days of blazing the trails as newlyweds in Colorado. Beach trips no longer involve lounging on a blanket with a book and a bottle of water. Camping has mutated from it's true form (back country, slinging food from a bag in the trees, digging a hole when nature calls!) to it's life-with-three-under-8 form (air conditioned cabin, blowing quarters at the campground arcade, bribing with ice cream). We worry about the challenges on the trails, in the water, etc. enough that sometimes we abandon fun ideas before we even give it a try.

So, we both need to work on our perspective surrounding this issue. We have three healthy, able-bodied kids who are incredibly hardy in the outdoors. They are pretty much always up for an adventure. Keller has enough steam in his engine to literally go all day long, and then beg for more when everyone else is dropping from exhaustion. Marley cannot stand the thought of being left out of pretty much anything (she's been known to yell "No, Marley!" several hundred times/day when she hears anyone mention anything they are planning to do, as in "I'm going to take the trash out to the curb" "No, Marley!"). Casey's a tough kid who does not want to ever be told that Keller can do things he can't just because of their 2 1/2 year age difference. He sprained his ankle on Friday (jumped from the top of a playground set on a day trip to the beach). The doctor put an ace wrap on it, told me to keep him off of it as much as possible, but to said follow his lead if he felt up to doing more. His ankle is swollen and painful, but he came home from the doctor and went directly out to the monkey bars.

Yesterday we took the kids down to Jack's Boat House in DC and kayaked with them on the Potomac. We rowed over to Roosevelt Island, where we hopped off and hiked around the island. We kayaked back and then decided we all still had fuel in our tanks, so we drove up to Riverbend Park (near Great Falls) and hiked back along the river for some exploring, wading, and a little "accidental swimming" by both boys. Even though I had to carry his 51.5 pounds of boy on my back quite a bit, Casey did not want to slow down or miss out on anything yesterday. Marley had so much dirt and grit in the bottom of her swim suit when we got home that I'm not sure how she was able to walk--but didn't complain of it once on our adventure. And Keller, well Keller wasn't done yet. Dave had to take him down to the stream after dinner to finish practicing skipping stones on the water.

So even though it's not the big dream (Dave's might be mountainbiking Moab, kayaking the Boundary Waters; mine might be heading back down to Guatemala for a longer stay, trekking in Peru)---it's a little piece of a different big dream; to foster a wanderlust in our kids that will someday take them all of the places they dream of.