Stepping Stones

When we were younger, I feel like I was always outside. Whether we were at my dad's house where we were basically shipped out the door in the early AM and told no to come home until dinner or if we were at my mom's where my stepdad took us fishing and shooting - I just feel like we were ALWAYS outdoors. I'm sure this is all part of that "things seem so much more perfect when you're older" thing... but still.

I knew when we had Jude that getting him outdoors meant a lot to me (to us, really). Not just getting him outdoors by tossing him out the door and letting him play in the front yard (don't get me wrong, that's something we do a lot) but also getting to local parks and taking walks and any number of other things where I'm interacting with him. I'm probably making this seem like it's a lot more challenging and important than it is - but I'm just trying to say that I don't want my kid sitting in front of the TV... playing video games and being a hermit. I don't want him to rely on toys and lack the ability to imagine things on his own and while I let him spend tons of time exploring on his own, I want to help him explore his world.

But as I was saying... my mom and stepdad (mostly my stepdad - he was pretty much raised in the boonies where shooting and fishing and hiking was the norm) seemed to have a never ending number of quirky outdoor things for us to do. One year for our summer vacation we stayed home all week and took day trips. One day in particular we rented a canoe and drifted down the Brandywine River - stopping at rope swings and just enjoying the weather. Other times we would take my stepdad's guns out to some random place, set up cans on a wall of some sort and try and shoot them down. Then of course we spent countless nights at the canal, fishing for fish that seemed to never come. Most of these nights were capped off with trips to Dairy Queen, a Blizzard and catching lightening bugs.

But perhaps one of the memories that I think about most is that we would spend hot summer days at Rittenhouse Park, climbing over the rocks in the creek, trying not to slip on the algae and tumble into the running water. Again, while this is something that stands out vividly in my mind, I'm sure it only happened like... three times or something - but I thought it was great.

Fast forward about 15 years and somehow we ended up moving practically right next door to this park. It's a short walk down the road or a good hike through the woods that border our neighborhood to get to the ideal rock-stepping area of the creek. While we've walked the distance of the creek a handful of times since moving here, we have yet to dip our toes in the cool water or connect the maze of stones from one side of the water to the other... until yesterday.

Yesterday, the warm weather was calling my name and so I took the short walk down the road to the park with Jude strapped on my back to start the memories that he'll share when he grows up. As it's been raining quite a bit lately, the water was moving swiftly, but not too quickly to turn us back. We scaled a few rocks, took off our shoes and scaled a few more. We sat in the middle of the creek - where the sun shone through bright and looked at the trees and flowers around us. We picked sticks out of the water and searched for fish and tadpoles (none of which we found) and then we climbed back on shore.

This picture reminds me so much of my younger brother from behind. There's something about his walk.

We took the short walk home, layed under the fan to cool off and I couldn't help but hope that we had plenty more days like that this summer. Maybe capping them off with a Blizzard and lightening bugs could make it a little sweeter though. :)