The Stampede

I was telling my mom this story, in complete exasperation, the other day, completely finding no homor in the situation. She, however, found lots of humor in the situation and told me I needed to write a blog about it. According to my mom, this is the kind of thing I'll want to remember 10 years from now. I'm not so sure about that. (I didn't even want to remember it five hours later...when my husband got home and asked how our day went, I answered "Ugh." and left it there)

So here's the story.

We pretty much just bought our house for it's location. We wanted something that felt a little secluded, but is still in town. We found that in our house. We kind of have a little forest in our backyard. Our property is cut in half by a pretty little creek, and we always have lots of wildlife to watch...I've seen turkeys, coyotes, badgers, beavers, raccoons, huge giant owls, snakes and lots and lots of deer (I use the deer to get my kids to behave. I tell them their Santa's reindeer checking up on them. I like to lie to my kids)

Love our yard, but I've only been on the other side of the creek one time. That's kind of weird to have a big backyard and never, ever set foot in most of it. So the other day, I decided it was time to explore. Not only our yard, but the thicker woods that our little woods lead into. Also, I was jonesing for some morels and thinking that I might find some in there.

So this week, I decided to take the kids for a nature walk in the backyard. We walked along the creek for a while until we found a shallow spot to cross over. Within 100 yards from my house, it was like we were in the middle of a national park. Completely all woods, we couldn't see any houses anywhere around. It was really gorgeous. The kids loved climbing over the fallen trees, and picking wildflowers, and looking at animal prints in the mud. There was a beautiful clearing that looked like a spot where fairies (or maybe Wiccans) would have their pow-wows under a full moon. We looked through the stream for pretty rocks and the kids competed to find the biggest sticks.

Dax was having the most fun. He is unsure and not very confidant in a lot of areas. He's had problems in school and we're actually having him repeat a year of preschool (because it's probably better to repeat preschool than repeat kindergarten). He's had some health challenges that kind of slowed down his learning and he struggles hard with school. And that's why I love to see him in nature. He's so confidant and sure-footed. It's just great to see him so at ease.

So I was actually kind of feeling guilty that I hadn't explored the woods until then. As we walked through it, I was imagining taking them on future camping trips and having picnics out there. I felt so bad for not having introduced the kids to the natural beauty that was literally next door to our house.

But then I realized why I never take the kids anywhere fun. It always ends in crying and yelling and giants messes.

I decided it was time to head back. They didn't want to, but eventually followed me back after I reminded them that there might be wolves living in the woods (last winter, a neighbor found a deer slaughtered in his backyard. He called wildlife experts and they identified the tracks in the snow as grey wolf prints. Other neighbors admitted they had seen wolves in the ravine. I looked and looked and never saw any but still, you never know)

We were having a good time making our trek back home. The kids spotted our house through the trees and for some reason, that caused a stampede.

We were on the other side of the creek and I was looking for the best spot to cross when they all started crying and yelling about wanting to go home. It was like a herd mentality. They all started to stampede towards the house. Dax started running, and instead of stepping in the inch of water over the rocks, he stepped in a giant thick mud puddle that sucked his shoe off. He started screaming bloody murder, which caused Quinn and Heath to panic even more. I pulled Dax out, tossed his muddy shoe up on the banks and set him on the other side of the creek.

Quinn was by this time in the middle of the creek (seriously, an inch or two of water), trying to climb up a 4 foot high bluff by grabbing onto roots. Then for some reason, he decided that the roots looked like snakes and started freaking out about snakes biting him. I yanked him out and set him by Dax and they both started running for the house.

Heath was still on the other side of the bluff, doing what he does when he's upset---sitting down sobbing. He can not cry and walk at the same time. So I yelled for him to come and he stayed there crying so I climbed back over to him (because I was in the creek) and got to him and realized he was seriously sitting two inches away from a bunch of poison ivy (Heath already has enough skin issues with the eczema. Poison ivy is the LAST thing that child needs). So to get him out of it, I grabbed him up and then I kind of slipped and trying to avoid falling into poison ivy, we both fell in Dax's mud. It was like quicksand. It sucked off both of Heath's shoes (which he was really mad about because he loves his new green apple Vans) They were completely encased in mud. Sick. I pretty much tossed a screaming Heath up into the yard and we all made our muddy tracks back to the house. I threw all the clothes and shoes into the washer, and threw us into the bath.

And that is why I don't do ambitious parenting projects like nature walks.

Ugh.

In my final thoughts about our little outing, I kind of freaked out a little bit. I was embarrassed that all the neighbors probably heard the kids screaming, and my yelling at them to knock it off and all of this ruckus we caused. But then that embarassment kind of turned to anger! My kids were totally acting like they were being murdered down in that wooded ravine. Why did no one check on the children being killed? What if there was a real murderer who dragged the kids down there to kill them? What if there was a Blair Witch?