My comeuppance is coming at me fast and furious these days

On Saturday afternoon, we and, judging by the volume of cars in the parking lots, roughly 10 percent of the population of the Fox Cities took in the beautiful fall day and decided to head to High Cliff. The picture above illustrates how well it went - Ben's face in particular. Though Gus, in his typical good-humored fashion, had a fine time, Ben and Paul made it abundantly clear that they were in no mood for an afternoon hike.

We hadn't gotten more than a couple hundred yards into our hike before my two eldest asked if we could turn back and go home. Then the whining kicked in full force. Their feet were killing them. They simply couldn't go on. They were dying, literally dying, from the heat and the lack of water. Oh what irresponsible parents were we to have left the water in the car! "We've been doing this for two hours, when will be done?" Ben moaned about 20 minutes into our trip. "Hiking is about the journey, not the destination," I intoned with mock sincerity. Would you guess my wisdom had no impact on how they felt? The ill-fated venture culminated in us beating a hasty retreat after a meltdown from Paul about Gus drinking more than his share of water and furor at me for leaving an oak leaf he really, really wanted sitting on a picnic bench.

Taxing though the day was, I couldn't help feeling I had somehow gotten what was coming to me. At some park roughly 27 years ago, I likely was behaving the exact way my boys did, if not worse. Though I thoroughly enjoy hiking now, back then I remember clearly thinking it was a pointless waste of time. Through my vocal dissatisfaction, I'm sure I successfully managed to quash any and all of my companions' hopes for a Waldonesque commune with nature.

If you haven't guessed already, I wasn't an easy child. I was often sullen, if not downright surly at times. I presented my parent with a veritable panoply of challenges. I was an extremely picky eater. Despite my mom's best attempts, probably more than I deserved, to make food that would appeal to me, I turned my nose up at almost everything. My mom must silently laugh to herself every time she sees one of my boys do the same to me. Paul's tantrums that vex me so? Yeah, I had a lot of those myself, too.

With all the karmic payback that was headed my way, I should have realized that becoming a parent would be an extremely risky endeavor for me. Even with all of that, I don't think any of my kids are as difficult as I was. I guess I should take comfort in the fact that people change, even cranky kids like me. I love hiking, have much broadened my eating horizons and rarely have any more tantrums. ;) Just to be on the safe side, though, Ben and Paul should watch out. You know what they say about payback.