March

A month after my last baby was born, my wife was tired. So tired. She had gone back to work after three weeks, as was her tradition. With me at home to watch the newborn, working short days helped a lot with her sanity and we had a pretty good system. I finally got to get in the groove of feeding and taking care of the baby, and she was sane and happy and tired. Our babies were always up every hour or two at night so she wasn't sleeping much at night, at a month out she was still really recovering from birth, and when she got home, the other three kids really really wanted playing with mommy time. I could tell that she was near the breaking point that Sunday, so I announced that I was taking the three big kids hiking.
This was the end of January and even in Texas, it wasn't warm. It was about 55 and drizzling, perfect hiking weather. We headed north to the Sam Houston National Forest to hike a section of the Lone Star hiking trail. The trail stretches for 130 miles East to West north of Houston. We've hiked most of the eastern half piece by piece starting at different trail heads. This day we just picked one and decided that we'd hike until we were tired, turn around and hike back. I wasn't sure how far we'd get, our party was one tired daddy, a two year old, a 4 year old and a 5 year old. Did I mention that it was lightly raining? How could this be anything but a memorable expedition?

We made it about a mile and a half before I had a mutiny on my hands, even carrying the two year old for much of the hike. I placated the troops with a stack of goldfish. This is when I taught them the trick that I learned watching Forest Gump. If they sat with their backs to each other then they wouldn't have to lay in the mud. Bubba was a smart man. We finished the fish and headed back. It was a long walk back but at least the rain stopped. There was some doubt that we were going to make it, not by me of course, but I was starting to make some very odd insect analogies before we were done. What has six tired legs and an incessant whine?

If we sit back to back, we dont' have to eat goldfish in the mud. 

By the time we got home mommy and baby had slept nearly the entire time and were well rested. The other three kids ate lunch and then all fell asleep for a long nap themselves. That let the baby and I hang out while mommy had her first chance in a month to just chill. I was briefly considered a god. Until the kids got up and we started finding the ticks. So many ticks. It was something like 17 ticks between the three kids. We all had the heebie jeebies for about a week. There were no infectious diseased involved so it ended up fine but it did put a damper on the memory of the hike.

I thought it would be remembered as wonderful a day of bonding with daddy in nature while mother and baby bonded at home. It was actually remembered as a 4 hour tick collecting death march in the rain.... while mother and baby bonded at home. Perfection is such an elusive thing.