King’s Corner

It seems that starting a blog shortly before finding that there are indeed other things to do away from the computer would be a poor choice.  The latest extension of the unannounced “break” from my writing was an extended family road trip to Gatlinburg, TN.  ”Extended” having multiple meanings here, as the trip was a week long as well as with some of the extended family on my wife’s side.  And while I’m highly doubtful that she will remember it, the trip had shown itself to have a profound and positive effect on my daughter.

One aspect is how she had so much grown socially in just one week’s time.  I will admit that the two of us are sort of isolated; as much as I try to make a good-faith effort to get out and about I’m still too lazy to bike/walk/meet the bus on time.  I have pretty much given up on the summer dads’ playgroup as my two options of reaching it are a hilly half-hour bike ride or an hour and a half between three busses.  Any attempt on my part to socialize with the other fathers is futile as my girl is a hell of a climber with no fear or regard for the danger of the edge.  If I want to chase my kid so I can catch her every other minute, well, there’s a few playgrounds close by for that.  This may change, though, as a week in close proximity with her cousin has taught her that interaction with other children is more than just a hand in the face before running away.

Yes, the girl gained the gift of truly interactive play.  I’m not entirely sure if it was her cousin that taught her this, as he is six months older and leads a much more active social life (take, for instance, the photo of the lucky devil getting a bath with three young girls, which I will not post a link to from here out of good taste), or if the two figured it out together while cooped up in a cabin overlooking the Smokies.  In any event, my kid is a bit more civil now when it comes to people her own age, as has been evident when she encounters children at the park now that we’ve returned.  Just the other day she scooped sand into a funnel with some random boy, then gave him a high-five (well, after I had given them both high-fives).

But that’s not what I really wanted to share.

There was a moment, one magical moment, with my daughter during the course of our vacation.  It was Thursday morning, the trip was winding down and we were taking the one and only foray into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for the six of us from Minnesota, two of those being the toddlers that we were building our vacation schedule around.  Sort of.  Children’s temperaments be damned, we were going to see some nature.

Our goal was to see bears, which we did for one fleeting moment, as we tooled along the motor trail at far below the speed limit.  There were a few points of interest to stop at, but none more enticing than Grotto Falls.  It was a mere mile and a half off the roadway along a trail through the woods, and all too tempting for us adults.  We grabbed the kids and made our way into the woods and up the slow but steady climb into the hinterlands.  Half of us didn’t make it.  The excursion proved too taxing on the cousin’s disposition, so he was brought back to the rental van by the in-laws, leaving my wife and I to sally forth with our daughter.

She spent the majority of her trip on my shoulders, some of it in her mother’s arms, and not all of it was sunshine and happiness for her.  She’s a mover, a runner, a climber.  She heard birds, and by God she wanted to chase after the noise to see them.  And then we got to the falls.  Three segments of rushing falls, the main attraction being a gorgeous 25-foot drop with the hiking trail continuing behind it.  It was just a stream finding the path of least resistance down the mountainside, but it even took my daughter’s breath away.  She had but one word to utter.

“Splash!”

We rushed ahead to get ourselves behind the falls where I held my daughter out to touch the rushing water.  ”Splash!  Splash!”  Over and over, she gleefully exclaimed the word and waved her arms under the falls.  At 17 months old, my daughter had found joy in connecting with nature! The highest point on the entire week for me was holding my daughter under the waterfall so she could soak herself in the beauty of it all in every sense of the phrase.

Photos, worsened by complications with the settings on our camera, do not do the moment justice.  Nor do they need to, as it remains with me.

She was calmer on the walk back.  Perhaps it was just exhaustion, as so much excitement does wear out such a small body.  But I’d like to think that she had gained a sort of reverence for nature.  She still wanted to walk a bit, but was less inclined to argue about having to ride on my shoulders.  She didn’t grab at the low-hanging branches as she did on the way up, she just reached up and brushed them with her fingertips.  Instead of yelling out to the birds, she was saying, “Birds, shhhhh” in my ear.  And to her delight they kept chirping for her.