What happens when I start to say no to experiences because I think my daughter is too young to remember them…
She may not remember it…We will.
My parents were adventurous and brought me right along with them when I was born. We always said we would do the same yet sometimes I wondered how it would “really” be when she was born, when she was little. Would we wait until she is “old enough” to do things. Would we wait until the age where she will remember things for the rest of her life to do the “memorable” things. Would we worry if she got wet in the rain or if her nap and snack were a little later than expected. So far the answer is…No.
She may never remember being in Australia.
She might not remember falling asleep in her travel crib only to be picked up 5 min later and carried sleeping on Julien’s shoulder for the first part of a hike. She may not remember waking up in the backpack in a forest of Eucalyptus listening to the exotic Australian birds and the sound of feet on soft sand trails. She may not remember the thunder sounds in the distance or the beautiful squiggly lines on the squiggly bark trees. She may not remember her fellow hikers talking to her and playing with her as she bounced along on her papa’s back gently pulling his hair or hitting his shoulder. She may not remember that she almost fell asleep 3 times yet was too excited by the new sights and sounds to let herself drift off. She may not remember arriving at the gorgeous wide open wild beach as it started to rain or watching the tiny hail stones make little dents in the soft sand as a double rainbow formed over the ocean horizon. She may not remember being under her rain cover and staying nice and dry while the rest of our group was drenched to the bone. She may not remember getting lost on the way home and using the extra time to scan the trees for koalas.
She may not remember any of this and yet to us, it does not matter..
She experienced it. Even if she never recalls a single second of that adventure every cell in her body got to see, feel, smell, hear and taste those 3 hours.
Would she have had a better sleep later on if I had stayed home and let her nap in the air conditioned hotel room?
Would I have had a better sleep that night?
Maybe.
And yet there will be plenty of quiet naps on soft mattresses in climate controlled spaces, this is the modern age. What is rare and can be tricky to come by is adventure, and so I say if you see one or sense one coming, grab it by the tail and follow it out the door. We are never too young to experience adventure and the earlier it wiggles its tail in, the stronger its pull and the greater our appreciation for it.
