Gopher Day goes awry

April 1, 2015 was Gopher Day in my little suburban slice of the world. It’s the day when neighbors, whom you haven’t seen in months, pop out to give a smile and subtle wave to signal the official close of hibernation. Masculine machines are firing up … trimming, whacking, pruning. I feel that familiar face sweat beading into formation in the sunlight through my car window. Hello, old friend! The songs sound catchier. Traffic flows like a good piece of gossip among girlfriends. It’s my favorite day of the whole year.

I pulled in my driveway to find the chicks, in various states of sweet spring activity – JoJo pushing Sloppy Joan around in an umbrella stroller. Spikey stepping up to her big girl bike with tottering training wheels. This is some serious utopian stuff, I thought … like a moron.

Any mom worth her salt knows that picturing perfection and your kids in the same space for more than a handful of minutes is a rookie assumption, sure to implode before you, leaving in its wake stinging shrapnel made of pinches, pokes and hysterics.

But this was Gopher Day! So I put history and intuition aside, and embarked on a sure-to-be-blissful jaunt around the park. And then, like the shittiest April Fools joke ever, all hell began to break loose. First, JoJo decided to abandon the bike she was on to push Sloppy Joan, which, it would turn out, meant big sis sprinting while a wide-eyed baby sat, white-knuckled with her prominent whale-spout pony flapping violently atop her head.

But this juvenile joyride was nothing compared to Spike, or as she will henceforth be called, “The Girl Who Killed Gopher Day”. Our 3 year old is notorious for bailing. Every hike, walk or bike ride to date has ended with her in a puddle of pout on a sidewalk. It’s embarrassing and it really brings my Supermom mojo down. To assume today would be different just because the sun was shining was naïve, I admit it, but I let her hop on her new Hello Kitty bike and get after it. I’d say about .2 of a mile in, we were in good shape. By .3, we were having steering issues. And by .4 we were standing next to the steed, contemplating the next move.

Sensing a general frustration and seeing smoke off JoJo’s heels, I simply suggested Spike leave the bike, walk with us and then practice when we came back around. If my future self could have intercepted the words from the mouth of my present self, everyone would have come through just fine. But there was no going back.

Me: Babe, let’s just go enjoy the walk and we’ll try again when we come back this way.

Spike: But Mama …

Me: Spikey, it’s such a beautiful day, let’s go try to catch JoJo!

Spike: No, I want to ride my big girl bike!

Me: Then hop on and steer it, like you were before.

Spike: It’s not working, Mama!

Me: OK, then let’s just walk for now.

Spike: No!

Me: Honey, Mommy’s gotta go catch up with your sisters. You coming?

Spike: No! I want to ride my bike!

Me: OK, well then you need to head home, hon.

Spike: Noooooo! I wanna ride my bike! [cue tears]

Me: Spikey, I’m not doing this here.

Spike: [cue screams]

Me: I have to go now. [Walks away nervously splitting my eyes to keep one on each set of children.]

Spike: [Screaming, blubbering dialogue I can’t decipher]

Me: [Runs back, picks Spike up and puts her in our fence. Neighbors at a standstill.]

Hank: [Chases Spikey around the backyard like a farmer after
a greasy pig until he catches and carries her, sack-of-potatoes style, into the house, where screams can still be heard because the windows are open because, you know, it’s freaking Gopher Day.]

JoJo, Sloppy Joan and I continued on our loop, which was, all things considered, nice.

I was naïve. I see that now. I thought I would be taking a mental snapshot of my three little ladies riding and strolling and smiling on the first sunny day of spring, and I would want to write about it and store it away in my heart forever. But I’m writing about this. And you know, sometimes that’s just the way walks go.