My family went on a hike yesterday.

At least we tried.

Just preparing to leave the house can be exhausting.

It takes forever to get two sometimes scatter-brained parents (Did you bring drinks for the kids? Diapers? A hat for the baby? The stroller? Single or double? Forget the stroller. Probably wouldn’t work on the trail anyway.) and three kids (one of whom doesn’t like listening – see last week’s post) suited up for the outdoors. Warm weather mercifully means no more puffy winter jackets and scarves looped round and round, a sunshiny reprieve from lost gloves and layers of clothes. Just slip on some Crocs and go.

Except…

Sunscreen is the bane of my summertime existence. Yet we dutifully dunk the kids in SPF even as they try to squirm their greased-up gams out of our grasp.

A picnic! Let’s have a picnic, I suggested. I’ll just slap together some PB&J’s, and we’re off.

Except…

Older sister doesn’t like peanut butter and isn’t too fond of jelly either. She orders cream cheese and honey. The baby can’t eat peanut butter yet. The husband recoils and requests a veggie burger.

I must have written down the wrong street address for the park because numerous sashays up and down Yates Mill Pond Road revealed nary a trace of Yates Mill Pond. There are some lush lawns along that stretch of road but no one was outside on a stunningly blue, bird-chirping morning. I was reduced to hopping out of the car, loping up a stranger’s driveway and asking for directions. The parking lot is on Lake Wheeler Road, I learned. Might I be excused for thinking Yates Mill Pond would be located on the street of the same name?

By the time we finally arrived, the clock struck perilously close to naptime. But we were determined.

Friends who had been waiting forever as we traversed Wake County’s back roads greeted us.

Time to hike!

Except…

It’s lunchtime. Past lunchtime even. We arrayed our picnic. Ate. Drank. Struggled to feed a squirming, bibless (forgot that too) baby without the aid of the stroller we smartly decided to leave behind.

We ambled down to the old mill. The kids spotted a menacing-looking snapping turtle beneath the water’s surface. One kid tried to pick up a sweet-looking baby turtle. It too was of the snapping species. She (the child) escaped unscathed.

Serenity loomed large as water burbled over smooth, round stones and clusters of lilypads created a Monet-like portrait far from France. I’ve got to hand it to Wake County (disclaimer: I’m a former county government reporter) – they did a fabulous job with this park. Aside from the rumble overhead of the cars zipping down Lake Wheeler Road, you’d think you’re deep in nature.

At the pond, the kids delighted in spotting minnows darting near the surface. They stared mesmerized at the undulating ripples as older children plunked rocks in the water.

They flirted with the water’s edge, skittering backwards and giggling as tiny waves lapped at their tiny sneakers. Then they did it again. And again. And they would have continued on just like that.

Except…

My husband, taking refuge on a shady picnic table, couldn’t help himself. He had to round up the troops with a rousing, “Come on, guys, we’ve got a long way to go!”

As adults, pleasure lies in the accomplishment of a goal: We set out to do a hike. Let’s do it.

But children live in the moment. As their parents, we could all stand to savor the here-and-now a little more.

In the end, we did the hike. The loop around the lake, over tree roots and under tree canopies, was not even a mile long. The kids had a blast, apart from a few trips and falls and some par-for-the-course whining of the pick-me-up variety.

But they would have enjoyed continuing to putter around at lake’s edge just as much.

My son’s preschool teacher has a fabulous bumper sticker glued to the rear end of her car.

“Childhood is a journey, not a race.”

On your mark, get set, go.

Bonnie Rochman appears every Monday on TriangleMom2Mom.