When I read that title, I picture small, purple birds, a yellow butterfly surrounded by soft, tall grasses, a Robin’s nest with three, perfect, Robin’s-egg-blue eggs, painted in pale pastels behind the words—A Mother’s Day Hike, written in tears.
This was the Mother’s Day I had envisioned.
I woke up to Greg’s favourite breakfast. In fairness, it’s tough to impress me with breakfast when my go-to meal has been oatmeal with blueberries, walnuts, cinnamon and chia seeds every morning for the past five years.
Yesterday, I was served; thick sliced bacon, sausages, French toast, fruit salad, hash browns, a salt-lick and oatmeal with blueberries, walnuts, cinnamon and chia seeds which I happily ate while my family ate the rest.
I told everyone, my wish for Mother’s Day was to go on a family hike. We were missing Ellie to a swim meet so that left us a family of four, two per width of the hiking trail. We could alternate; Liz with Hanna, Greg with Chloe, then Greg with Liz, Hanna with Chloe, Chloe getting a piggy back, Hanna running ahead, Hanna collapsing, Greg stopping to pretend to read about the history of some insect who used to roam these parts, Greg stopping to stretch, Greg stopping to tell us he wore the wrong shoes, Greg getting a piggy-back down to the car, Greg asking if I had packed any of the thick sliced bacon in my pockets for him to snack on….
To my surprise, everyone agreed to the hike. I think Hanna was feeling guilty for not making me a Mother’s Day craft, Chloe saw the bigger picture—hiking with Mom usually means some sort of treat when we’re done and Greg saw this as a way to make me happy without having to spend any money.
“Are you going to shower?” someone asked before we left.
“No, we’re going for a hike. Just wear layers, long pants as it’s shady but a t-shirt underneath as it’s meant to warm up.”
I left the house without showering, without a wallet or a purse, just a Chapstick and a phone to take a picture of my beautiful children in the forest and my husband nursing a calf cramp while learning about the Hilton Falls beetle and its untimely demise. It was going to be wonderful.
About five minutes out of our driveway towards the trail, a car filled with excited, teenage boys wearing Toronto Blue Jays baseball caps sped past our car, windows down, cheering and shooting what we assume were positively charged finger gestures while shouting, “Go Jays!!! Woohoo!”
Greg whispered to me, “We could just keep driving to Toronto and catch the game this afternoon.”
Hmmm.
I hadn’t showered, I didn’t have a wallet, I did have Chapstick—Thank God!
Okay, let’s do it but we can’t tell the kids.
We drove about 45 minutes and when the CN Tower was close enough to scrape the paint off of our vehicle, Hanna said, “Where are you guys even going? This is nowhere near Hilton Falls!” I guess it was kind of exciting that we were surprising them with their first professional baseball game. It was less funny that I was wearing lined pants on a day when the dome was scheduled to be open and I was smearing Chapstick all over my face like it was full make-up.
We bought sunscreen, ball caps and paid more for lunch than our four scalped tickets.
Ellie was not going to be happy about this. She even asked before heading off to her weekend swim meet, “Mom, are you guys planning to go to a Blue Jays game while I’m away?”
“We have no plans to go to a game, Ellie.” Technically, that was not a lie. We had no plans.
It was an awesome Mother’s Day.
Greg would do anything to get out of a hike.
