Raising a teenager is not always a walk in the park. It’s nearly impossible to keep well-fitting clothes on the child. No matter how often we go to the store there is never enough food in the house. We are always trying to find the balance between independence and guidance.
Today, though, was a walk in the park… literally.
It was a beautiful fall day. Rain last night took many of the leaves off the trees, but the ones that remained seemed to know this was their last opportunity to put on a show.
One of our favorite things to do with The Progeny is to put her in the car and take her somewhere without telling her where she’s going. So, as soon as she stepped off the bus, I put her in the car, and started driving to a local park so we could enjoy the beautiful weather and the fall foliage. She asked where we were going, of course, but I wouldn’t tell her.
I was aflutter with the excitement of surprising her with a pretty walk on a pretty day. She took the wind out of my sails when we arrived at the park and she said, “Mooooom,” in that way only a teen can and then said she was hungry. We weren’t 100 feet on the trail when she started to complain that her feet hurt.
I was tempted to turn back. I wanted to enjoy a beautiful fall day and that was not going to happen with a complaint every couple of minutes. But I really wanted to be outside. I’m not often stubborn, but I dug in my heels on this one and made her continue.
As she got distracted throwing rocks in the stream, crunching in leaves, playing with a stick in the water, and panicking that I was going to fall while I climbed a fallen tree she started to talk. I listened. She told me about her essay in English, and her idea for an internet safety video game, and about a story she is working on, and about a funny incident at school, and about things going on with her friends. We didn’t talk the whole time. A lot of the time we listened to the creek talking to itself, the birds talking to everyone, and the wind talking to no one in particular.
We didn’t walk the whole trail. The Progeny was hungry, so it was time to turn back, but we walked about a mile, and it was enough.
A mile was enough to see and appreciate the beauty of God’s creation and to connect with one another.