I can’t remember if I ever shared the story of the time we bundled the girls up and ventured out in the wee-est hours of the morning to hike a mountain so that we could film dawn breaking over the summit for a video we were doing for work.
Sounds totally reasonable and very what-could-possibly-go-wrong, right?
Many unexpected things happened like the trail head being closed, one of the girls tripping and having one foot go into the nearly frozen water, or realizing that if we didn’t sprint we’d miss the dawn so we split up…
While we didn’t plan for those particular challenges, I did have extra socks in my pack and Sean had a resolve and endurance that helped us cross the various obstacles. We can try to pack the right things and condition our bodies and minds for what think will happen, but there are still variables—in life and in parenting.
I wrote more about the similarities and differences between parenting and hiking over at Bon Bon Break, and I don’t mean what to pack, but more the pacing of this beautiful, obstacle and reward patterned journey that we take as parents. Will you go over and read it? I’d love to see it spark a conversation at Bon Bon Break about softening our ideas of how things are supposed to be and how we can allow ourselves to enjoy it.