Walk with Jonah

We had to rearrange piano this week which meant that today Liam and Gavin had lessons back to back for 1.5 hours.  Our piano teacher recently moved to a new house and being that I spend a great deal of time in her new neighborhood I find myself exploring while I wait.  A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a 3.2 mile cross country running path for the local high school.  So today being that I knew we'd have a big chunk of time, I loaded up Ruby (the dog) before picking up the kids from school, and asked Jonah how he felt about going on a "hike" with me while we waited.  He was thrilled.  Off we went along the path and I had no idea what to expect from him, but he was utterly delightful.  Running ahead, skipping, stopping to notice a piece of glass, a simple rock and all the while gabbing away.  He's much like Jared in this way.....never really at a loss for words and delighted with a new place to explore.  We talked about everything from a new friend we wants to invite over, what his animal pick is for an upcoming project, his desire to compete in a 4-H speech contest, and on and on.  After about 30 minutes I asked how he was feeling because I knew we had about another 30 minutes before we made it back the car.  "I'm great mom, I'm not even tired.  At all."

We continued on and crossed bridges where he balanced on the sides and contemplated aloud the what-if's of falling in the creek below, sat on a giant tree trunk that was cut to keep the path clear, and skipped rocks in the creek while Ruby barked like a maniac at the slightest anticipation of a throw.  Then something happened that made my heart swell.  He started thinking back to when he was in preschool and all the fun things we did together.  His favorite memory was when I would take him in the Burley bike trailer and ride up to Sugar Hollow.  We did this about once a week when the weather was tolerable in both Spring and Fall.  I would usually pack him and Ruby in the trailer with lunch in the back and we'd stop at the stream to eat, throw rocks in and just explore.  He remembered details that I had forgotten, or maybe never knew like the time Gavin was with us and opened a yogurt that exploded on the roof of the trailer.  That one made him laugh to himself while he was remembering the story.  He then became desperate to recreate the memory and talked for about 10 minutes about the weight restriction of the Burley and if I could pull the 100# of he and Gavin combined.  No, I cannot do that, but Dad could, so he announced his plans to the brothers when we picked them up:  this weekend Dad would pull him and Gavin in the Burley and the rest of us would ride along to once again throw rocks in the stream at Sugar Hollow.