When my eight year old went to the closet to get the wading boots for the gang, which included himself, his brother and a neighbor,  I said whoa.  No one goes up the creek without mom!  Yes I want to give them time on their own to be boys, but I also wanted to make sure this was a safe trek.  So I too pulled on the black knee high rubber boots.  I was laughing that my doctors would probably shake their heads at seeing me go into the creek on a cold day and gingerly step from mossy rock to mossy rock to head up the creek.  Once I realized I could slip and fall and end up a soaking wet mess on this cold day, I decided to take it slow.  As I tried to watch over the boys, I also was focused on stepping on the next rock.  In my field of vision came a hand.  It was a strong but gentle hand.  It was my eleven year old.  He was looking after me,  looking after him!  I gratefully grabbed his strong hand which is now bigger than mine.  I thought If either one of us goes down then we're all wet!  That would be quite a memory.  But inch by inch we made our way up the creek. 

   It was beautiful, exhilarating, peaceful and liberating.  The sound of the rushing creek made me want to stay here until dark.  I looked up to see the tunnel they had talked about with wide eyes.  On this day Indiana Jones had nothing on us!  The tunnel which seemed to hold up the road above the creek was beautiful.  It had green ivey dangling from it as if it was a curtain.  We stopped to take pictures and crawled.  I was relieved to see it was big and wide and rectangular ... and it didn't appear to pose an impending danger. 

   Then we spotted it!  It was the waterfall.  Our expedition was a success.  The water was rushing down the rock wall.  It rivaled some pictures of waterfalls I'd seen taken in other parts of the world.  It was beautiful.  And to think this is just about a hundred yards or so from my house.  It felt like we were miles away from civilization but we were practically in our own back yard.  I was brought back to reality when my cell phone rang.  Yes, we were in civilized territory.  It was my dear friend Sabrina... I told her she wouldn't believe where I was!  She too has three boys.  She laughed and said I just did that last week!  We chuckled at how wonderful it was to raise boys.  You just don't know where they will lead you.  They are fun, adventurous and have a great sense of fun. 

I know raising girls must be fun, but I've never raised a girl.  As for boys just about every day and every thing turns into an adventure.I love the wonder I see in their eyes as they are discovering new territory.  As a result, as the mother of boys, I've enjoyed them allowing me to be one of the gang and to revisit what it's like to be a kid again.  Since I've had boys, I even have a new appreciation for bugs!