We took Piper hiking in the Shenandoah Valley yesterday. It was her first hike. She wasn’t that excited. “So, you just go walk around in the woods? Boring.” She complained in the car most of the drive up the mountain. I let her wear her tutu and bring her favorite stuffed animal. These are essential components for forest exploration.
Piper’s dad gave a brief lecture on poison ivy. This led to her favorite new game called “Is this poison ivy?” in which she touched every leaf in the woods and asked…you guessed it: “Is this poison ivy?” Half of the hike went like this.
“Is this poison ivy?”
“No. Put that down.”
“How about this? Poison ivy?”
“I hope not, especially since you just rubbed it all over your cheek.”
“Hey. Look at this leaf. Is it poison ivy? Huh?
“Stop!”
Luckily, Sissy pulled Piper close to enjoy the view.
Then they explored flora and fauna together by poking unknown things with sticks.
Piper took a brief tumble on the steep part of the trail. I cleaned up her wounds the best I could and she said, “Mommy, you make everything better.”
At the end of our hike, Piper declared it a moderate success. She agreed to do it again anyway. “I liked the hiking part,” she said, as we emerged from the woods, “just not the falling down part.”
piperism 
As much as I love C being in her teeny tiny phase of life, it’s posts like these that make me look forward to her being a little girl.
Even hiking up a mountain I see little P in my very big girl. I pulled her into my lap after dinner tonight and she barely fit. I do miss the baby days, but I’m having a blast these days, too. One thing that doesn’t seem to change is their personality and spirit. Even in her teeny tiny phase of life, little C is who she will be. It’s such an amazing ride.
Oh the pic of the girls together! So effing cute. And I can totally picture the poison ivy lesson backfiring.
You’ll have pics soon of EB and her baby sis 🙂
HA! Hiking is contagious!!
It must have been the moon. You were a total trooper!
I could hear myself in Piper’s repetitive question. We go hiking fairly regularly, and I, for one, am very sensitive to poison ivy. We were just on several trails at Turkey Run State Park, and I could see it everywhere. I heard myself saying over and over to my children (and husband), “Don’t touch the green. Don’t touch the green.” Alas, my daughter has a rash today on her forarm (maybe not from touching poison ivy), but maybe from the natural insect repellant we used for added protection!
we’ve had to invent many a game/story/bribe to get our kids up and down mountains. but they’re champs at it now!
That’s encouraging! I’ll keep trying. Thanks for reading!