Maple Patch

Every year I try to go up the North Shore in the early/mid autumn season to see the inland maples on the hills that sweep down to Lake Superior.  I’ve made it up there every year, although I fretted it would not happen this year.  We went apple picking the Saturday I had in mind to drive north, and Dr. Peds has had to work a lot (and will be working a lot in the indefinite future).  Last Saturday I had tickets to the symphony, and while the weather was beautiful, I decided it would be too tricky to try to take all four kidlets on a road trip that they weren’t overly excited about in the first place if I had to be back home by a certain time in the evening.  I was still on the fence about whether or not I should try to go on Sunday up until the very minute we left . . . 1:30 p.m. in the afternoon.  That was the earliest I could start out because of church, Sunday School and hungry kidlets who desperately needed to eat.

I’ve taken everyone by myself before, but this time I was really nervous about it because of some defiant behavior issues we’ve been facing.  I would not say it was an EASY trip, but I love those orange and red maple leaves so much, even though I arrived half a week past their true peak, that the trip was still worth it even though Mr.Trouble on Feet screamed for several hours in the carseat on the way.  Someone woke him up JUST when he’d fallen asleep  . . . DRAT!  It was worth it even though there was a lot of fussing because somehow the cooler that I packed with all the sippy cups of milk for the baby and all the snacks somehow didn’t make it into the car before we left.  It was worth it even though The Banana, seated in the back,  insisted on kicking YaYa’s seat in the middle row over and over again until YaYa was worked up into a meltdown frenzy and I ended up yelling A LOT.  It was worth it even though YaYa was so mad about coming and then loosing her bird call that she stomped off in the opposite direction that we were hiking numerous times and I worried she was going to fall off a cliff somewhere or end up completely lost or kidnapped since she didn’t even know where she was going on the trails and refused to stay with us.  It was worth it even though Mr. SP stole one of my favorite special pencils to take with on the hike and document things in his little notebook.  I was super happy about the documenting.  I was not super happy about how he used my favorite pencil to write in the dirt rather than on his paper.  Everyone wanted to go different directions on different hiking trails, or one person thought it was time to turn around when others did not.  It was that kind of a day, full of a lot of emotionally draining parenting.

BUT!  Those leaves!  The ones still on the trees and the ones freshly fallen to the ground?  Amazing!  I LOVE maple trees.  I love canopies of brilliant leaves over my head and the smell of fall in the forest.  We saw lots of chipmunks and woodpeckers and robins and other little creatures that kept people entertained, and because I knew it would be wise to only pick ONE place to visit, even though there were three hundred places I wanted to go, we managed to get home at a decent hour, everyone was in bed on time, and with a lot of hard, late night  work, I was even ready to teach my first Monday morning music class the next day.