holiday hike

Over the holiday break, which ends today, our kids had a few gatherings with various friends.  I am the mom who invites kids over for movies, takes them to the beach, and on hikes.  I am the mom who makes soup.  We are the family who hosts teen parties.  We put two six packs of canned juice in the fridge and they are free to help themselves.  They love this.  We make "dirt cake" and serve it in flower pots.  We sit at the table and eat together.  Other parents think I am brave to do this.  I would rather the kids are under my watch and in a home with ground rules than left free to roam around town.

One day we took a few kids up to the forest where other friends joined us.  As we drove up the mountain it was raining, but as Annabel's friend Maggie predicted, by the time we got to our destination, it stopped, and the sun was bright in the sky.  "Don't worry Mrs. Marks, it always stops in time," she had told me as she sat in the passenger seat, chatting nonstop to me about her life.  I love it when kids call me Mrs. Marks, it reminds me of my childhood when we wouldn't dream of calling a parent by their first name.  

We walked in the forest, we smelled the moist air, we saw caves, and jacksons, and piles of pine needles that had fallen in clumps on the bare branches.

Then we walked around an old cowboy town and all went out to lunch afterwards.  

The kids, ranging in age from eight to fourteen, got along well.  I got to talk to a couple of the moms who joined in.  The parents are so busy, everyone feels they are behind the eight ball.  The kids are free, they are on break, they have not a care.  But for a few hours we all joined in that freedom.