Today’s excursion took us to Selvatura Park, where we had the modest goal of walking a well-defined trail through the jungle and traversing a series of suspension bridges. Our adventure began as you might expect — in the bathroom, where this happened:
On a mandatory pre-hike potty break, Miles and I literally got locked in a restroom when the doorknob came off in my hand. While I was at least slightly amused, Miles immediately went into survival mode.
“HELP!!!” he called, banging on the door. “WE’RE TRAPPED IN THE BATHROOM!!!”
When a savior failed to immediately materialize, despair quickly set in. “I MISS MOMMY!” he bellowed. And while we could hear Mommy from inside the bathroom, she could not hear our calls for help, which, if you know Jaclyn, makes perfect sense. Within a few minutes a maintenance worker came to the door and liberated us.
“Daddy broke the door,” Miles said as soon as he exited, proving what I already knew to be true — the child has no loyalty to me.
With that incident behind us, we were free to begin our hike.
I expected Miles to be at least a little nervous about traveling over the suspension bridges, but I was quickly proven wrong. So wrong, in fact, that I needed to stop him long enough to go over safety guidelines.
“Can I have a snack?” Miles started whining early, knowing that there were M&Ms in the trail mix. “I’m getting really hungry. And I want to sit down.”
“Tell you what,” I bargained. “If you can find a chair in the jungle, you can sit down and have a snack.”
Well stupid me, there were several benches in the park, and snacking became a requirement at ALL of them.
Still, it was important to keep his strength up, what with him once again voluntarily assuming the role of navigator. Map in-hand, Miles led us down the twisty mountain path.
To his credit, Miles kept his endurance up for almost the entire walk. It wasn’t until we neared the end of the trail that he started asking me to carry him (FAT CHANCE, KID), and we settled on some assistance going up and down steps. The bridges though? Those were all Miles.
The Perils (& Pride) of Paternity 