Quilcene, WA. "Mia you need to walk" CJ says to Mia. She takes two steps and then crumbles onto the pebble beach. The wet rocks leave a damp imprint on her butt. "Mia, I'm not going to carry you anymore" he says. We still have about a half a mile to the cabin. The rain hangs in the air, like a mist. I walk over to see if there is anything I can do. "Don't pick her up".
When we arrived at the cabin earlier that day, the first thing we did was check the tide schedule. We wanted to make a trip to the sand dollar flats. The tide has to be out to expose to smooth sand where starfish and gooey ducts hide out. Going to the flats is a high light of our trip to CJ's cousin's cabin on the Puget Sound. This is the first year that Mia has been big enough to explore it so we were anxious to take her there. We always seem to forget that it's a mile walk.
He carried her to the flats. No easy feat considering he was wearing flip flops and the beach is entirely smooth wet rocks. I merely had to carry my camera and could feel myself sweating underneath my raincoat. The tide had already begun to come in. We searched for any signs of wildlife, but they had already been covered by the encroaching water.
We stayed about 20 minutes, Mia threw oyster shells off the beach. Now its time to walk back. Mia preferred to be carried. She tried to head him off by running in front of him and pushing her hands against his thighs. He knelt down and carefully took off her pink rubber boots to empty out any rocks or sand that found their way in. Once he was sure, the shoes were empty he urged her to keep walking.
A walk that should have taken 20 minutes was now going on 45. I probably would have given in and picked her up at this point. I could see Mia had expected the same from her dad. He hooked his hands under her arms to set her on her feet but she refused to lock her knees. "You need to walk" he said as she screamed. Finally, realization set in on her. I ran about 50 yards ahead and she ran crying the final leg of trip. I scooped her up in my arms and we made our way inside.
CJ caught up to us. As we made our way up the steps he said "That's how we should do it in the future. "I'll be the heavy and you can be the reward".
