I WANT SOME WAAATTTTEERRR!!!

My good friend Angela invited us to walk at the Gateway trail on Saturday. [Ok...my first two clues that this was not gonna work should have been "walk" and "trail"] Short and Moo had a scrimmage so I took Gabe, Emma, and Coop with me. The walk began wonderfully - what a gorgeous day to be there - and both Gabe and Emma were keeping up just fine. [Emma was even keeping pace with Angela, which ain't easy 'cause girl is F-A-S-T!!] We make it to the trail to go to the top when Emma began to lose speed [mind you, this is only about 5 minutes into the walk] and she began to huff and puff - LOUDLY. She tried to pull on Angela's shirt and get her to pull her up the trail [Emma ain't stupid] but I fussed at her so she stopped. We got to the top, talking all the way, and Emma began to lag further and further behind. "I can't do this anymore!" she told me [MORE THAN ONCE] and like every good mother I simply ignored her [MORE THAN ONCE]. "Walking is good for you - come on you can do this!" [I guess I forgot that she is the DIVA to beat all divas....what was I thinking dragging her to the Gateway and expecting her to walk? OMG!]

We circled around a few times and on one of our times we meet Coop, Austin, Marcus, and Gabe. Gabe decided that the rocks lining the trail looked much better right on the path so he was throwing large stones everywhere. [Yes, I got some "Control your kid" looks from some man on the path. He got over it. He's luck y Gabe didn't peg him with a stone....just sayin'...the boy's got good aim.] Here is where my obvious lack of sense went completely out the window - I decided that Gabe should make the loop with us!! [Clearly the top of the Gateway Trail is in extreme altitudes because my thought process was all messed up due to lack of oxygen to the brain.] We made it about 2 steps and then the party really began:
"I need some WAAAATTTTEEERRRRR!!"
"My wegs [Gabanese for legs] are HHHHUUUURRRTTINNNNGGGG!"
"I can't walk...hold me!!!!"
"BAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!"

We heard this [and I'm quite sure EVERYONE in KM did too] ALL THE WAY back to the car. [At this point, I was looking for a large boulder to 1. Hide under or 2. Hurl at myself]. We finally made it to the car [and with a screaming youngin' I think it took 5 hours or something like that...OK, like 10 minutes, but in my mind it was 5 agonizing hours.] We made it to the car and found the WWWWAAAATTTTTTEERRRRR for Gabe. Amazingly, he was ready to go walk again...what is up with that?

I am pretty sure when I rode by there today a new sign had been added:
"If you think your 4 year old will climb this trail without screaming you are sadly mistaken."