Hiking with a Toddler

Though I love living in a city, I find so much solace being in nature. The quiet, the plants, the earth, the breeze, the sun—the chance just to breathe. When I was pregnant, I hoped so much that my little one would love nature as well. “I want an adventure baby,” I always told my husband. I pictured hiking with her in a baby carrier when she was too little to walk, and then her exploring a nature trail on wobbly feet, and eventually a child running ahead of me to see what was around the next corner. 

During the latter days of December, in those precious days between Christmas and New Years when the world seems to all take a break, that dream became a reality. Though I had not managed to take her out on a hike in her pre-walking days, we took B.G. to Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve (a boardwalk trail through a swamp in Southern Louisiana) when she was thirteen months old. 

We had the stroller with us, and she went in it periodically, she spent most of her time walking (and also sitting). She was so excited to be exploring somewhere new, something unlike anything she had seen before, a world away from the bustle of the city and with lush plants growing in shallow water. The swamp cypress produces “knees”---little stumps that poke out through the soil. Saw palmettos reach upwards and Spanish moss hangs down from tree branches. It’s wild and wonderful. 

B.G.’s little legs took her excitedly forward, for about a foot at a time. Then, she would tire or something would catch her attention and she’d squat down to examine it with the devotion of a scientist. Toddlers are naturalists. 

In the time it would take the average person to walk the entire length of the trail (about two miles), we walked a quarter mile. But in that quarter mile? She saw the world.

Thanks for reading!

💜

Laura