This Will Make My Dad Happy

When I was a kid, Sundays were always family activity days.  And family activities meant hiking.  Considering that for much of my childhood we lived in Alaska and Arizona, both states known for spectacular scenery and excellent hiking, this makes sense.  If you like to hike.

I don't.  At all.

I have never seen the point in walking without going anywhere.  It's not my thing.  So of course, like any child, I whined and complained and was a general pain in the ass about it.  I can't imagine why my parents didn't just abandon me on the side of the trail.

And then I grew up and didn't have to go hiking if I didn't want to.  The sweet freedom of adult independence!

Until I married a man just like my father.  Naturally.

You will recall that we now have Sunday Family Fun for the Family Blackrock.  When I was still very pregnant, and then when I was still recovering from birth, A. took pity on me and our family fun activities were relatively tame things like picking blueberries or going for ice cream.

But the baby turned one month old yesterday, so now there's no excuse for either him or me to flake out on the more strenuous activities that count for fun in A.'s and Cubby's opinions.  I would be happy for the two of them to go and do their tortuous activities by themselves, but then that wouldn't be so much family fun, now would it?

Considering my family history, I don't think it was an accident that my parents' baby gift for Charlie was a carrier.  So I can carry him for Family Fun hikes.

The only full-length mirror in our house it at the top of the stairs with windows opposite it, hence the picture quality.  But you get the idea.

The whole family went for our first hike on Sunday, Cubby in his pack* and Charlie in his.  We just went to The Plantation, which is a, uh, plantation of pine trees planted by A.'s grandfather in the 1950s.  It's only about half a mile from the house, which is about as far as I wanted to go.  After a short play session in The Plantation during which Charlie lay on the ground and Cubby ate some grapes, Cubby and A. descended into the gully.  I declined to climb down a steep, slippery gully bank while front-loaded with an infant, so Charlie and I headed home.

It was a short hike, but I have no doubt many, many more  of a longer duration will follow.  Yay.

Thanks, Mom and Dad.  I think.

* Cubby probably doesn't really need to be packed around so much anymore, but it's a useful way to contain him and cover some distance without trying to keep a toddler from pitching himself headlong over the gully bank in pursuit of his beloved creek.