parenting children is like a hike

Today we went hiking. Which really isn't anything new if you know us well, but i had some thoughts along the way. I love analogies so here you are. as i was walking i was thinking about the description that the hiking book gave of the hike. Beautiful and serene forest trail with tall Douglas firs following a flowing stream and many waterfalls along the way. Sounds great doesn't it? The person who hiked it and wrote about the trail had an experience on that trail that they deemed to be a 4 out of 5 stars. Now I will share MY experience. It was 90 degrees out. The kids started whining the minute we started the trail, which made mommy and daddy a little edgy and impatient. It seemed to be a never ending uphill. The flowing stream was a small trickle that later turned into a stream. The trees looked like every other tree that we have on our own property and did i mention the kids where cranky and practically wanted to be held the whole way? Take into account they had just spent 3 hours driving in the car to get there... our car which does not have air conditioning and our middle son does not like wind and screams if it's to windy do windows down had to be at a minimum.
The hiker man didn't write about these things in the hiking book! He couldn't know our situation or the circumstances of our situation. He just recommended from his experience the hike.
That's a lot like parenting. Many have gone before us, written books, given lots of advice and told about the great blessings or hardships of raising children. When a new baby is expected to arrive the parents can read books and get all the advice they can until they are blue in the face, but you can't really tell them what their experience is going to be. Each and every parenting situation is different. The path is the same, but the conditions are not. If it had been 20 degrees cooler, my children much happier, less uphills, and a shorter car ride I am positive that my perspective of that trail would be much different. It's the same with parenting..

well that's about all that i can muster right now as in thoughts.. so there's my analogy for you... :)
I would post pictures but our camera is broken :(