Now that Josh is in his internal medicine rotation and is done with surgery (woohoo!) he has every weekend off, which seems like a real treat now! Yesterday we decided to go do something and went for a hike at the Shiawassee Wildlife Refuge here in Saginaw. We brought our hiking backpack back from Dominica so we put Marissa in there, but this was the first hike we set out to do with Shane actually hiking. Josh wanted to bring the stroller for him, but I told him that if we wanted to be able to do these things we just needed to start doing it. And I'm so glad we didn't bring it, because (after a lot of encouragement) he hiked the whole 2+ miles by himself! And Marissa had a lot of fun in the pack too, so I'm excited and hopeful for more hikes in our future! Here's what we learned about how to get a 3 year old to keep walking for over 2 miles and a 1 year old to stay happy for the length of time it takes for him to do it!
Make sure to give Marissa a hat to wear- not only will it protect her from the sun, it will keep her occupied taking it on and off of both her and daddy's heads and you won't even be annoyed because it will make her so happy.
Tell Shane there's a really cool creature just ahead for him to see, and when he scares them away applaud him on his scariness (he is very into that right now).
When he starts to get tired, tell him you want to stop and take his picture with you.
Set him on the continual quest for the perfect walking stick. Make a game out of throwing them into the river or crevices in trees.
And make sure to give her one too so she can entertain herself by chewing on it and poking her dad in the back of the head
Constantly tell him what a big boy he is and that only babies need to be carried.
And when all else fails, tell him that he can stay in the forest if he wants but we are going to keep walking. Works like a charm. Then do the happy dance with him when he's done and go to the splash pad afterwards to cool off.
7 comments:
That is all so cute and funny! what clever ideas, will definitely keep them in mind for future needs. Glad Josh has weekends off right now and that you get to spend them doing fun things like hiking!
That is hilarious! Landon is the WORST about hiking, I will seriously have to write these down. He would have never done that, unless there was nothing uphill! Too funny. The stick one is a REALLY good suggestion for the boys though!
haha so funny! i remember when we hiked bense pool with little norm and had to use the same words of encouragement to get him to keep going.
That picture of Marissa wearing her hat is so darn cute! Those are good ideas to keep your kids going, I will try some of them:)
This post will come in handy as we prepare to go hiking in Montana. We've been trying to figure out how to manage that with a 3 and 1 year old. Nice tips! :)
Nice. I've biked by there before & have been wanting to check it out. A little worried about getting lost if I go alone though.
seeing marissa in that backpack makes shane look SO big! i remember him in that not that long ago...
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