Little Strokes for Little Folks

I recently went to a camp for a few days with my family.  It was run by a children’s summer camp that invited families, for a nominal fee,  to come up for a few days after their standard summer session had ended.

Each family stayed in their own cabin with bunk beds and it was awesome.

I would say the highlight for me though (in addition to my 68 year old dad getting up on water skis for the first time in his life), was taking my son, who is 4, for a very early morning canoe ride and paddle the first morning we were at camp.  He had woken up that first morning at 6 am (way before I or anyone in our cabin was ready to get up).  SO in an effort to let everyone else sleep, I quickly got him dressed and headed out!

As we walked past the canoe docks, I felt magnetized to the lake and getting on the lake.  I got the feeling that he was too.  The lake was completely still, flat and glimmering in the morning fresh sunlight and it was so quiet all around us.

We turned over a canoe, put a life jacket on him and went out on the lake.  I have no idea if we were allowed to just take out a canoe before anyone was there, but I figured, hey, worst case: I get scolded a bit when we get back. In my judgement, I think we both wanted to seize the moment.

I could tell he was loving being on the water.  In a peaceful kind of way, we were both quiet and soaking it in.  He was also experimenting with his paddle and figuring out that if he pulled the water from front to back with his paddle, the boat would move forward and then if he put the paddle behind him and pulled the water from back to front, the boat went backward.  I was letting him do his thing and just paddling along.  When I could tell he figured something out, it made me smile.  It was his first canoe ride and I felt so full of happiness that we were together for it and in that particular moment.

We went to the edge of the lake and back and somewhere in the middle he looked back and me and said:  “Mommy, can I wake up really really really early again tomorrow so you can take just me on a canoe ride again?”.

We beached the canoe, put the life vests exactly where we found them and whispered our way to breakfast.

It was as if it never happened.  But it did.  And it was perfect.