I don’t wanna, he said.

And thus trilled the opening notes of the chorus we sing for every adventure. Oh, did you think that camping for two years straight meant the children were excited to embark on adventures all the time? I did too, but that’s a hearty no.

The size of said adventure doesn’t matter. This time, it was a twenty-minute drive up a few thousand feet to snowshoe where there was good enough coverage. But also to where it was quieter, and to where our house might be some day.

Also, notably, a place that he labeled his “favorite kind of forest.” And a place that, when we were here last spring and doing this exact activity, he said “we need to snowshoe more. I really like it.”

On this particular day there were extenuating factors. He had spent the night at a friends, he was tired, he was sugar-hungover. He was feeling the pull of the beanbag chair and the dying fire in the woodstove and the pages of his graphic novel.

But even on the best days, I have found that the barrier of the front door is so strong since we have lived in a house again. When our walls were the canvas of the camper, it was less of a lift somehow to push open the flimsy screen door and step into the next adventure.

But in my significant experience with the I Don’t Wannas, I have discovered that they will eventually die. It’s just how long you’re willing to go. Sometimes, it’s once everyone is back in the car. Sometimes, it’s on the drive home. Sometimes, it’s a mention a few weeks later about the osprey that caught the fish while paddleboarding. Sometimes, it’s about the perfect stick they found in the woods to defend their fort. I’m guessing there are things I’ll never know about when it was worth it.

On this day, it was halfway up the hill when the whining stopped. Before that, he protested with both his voice and his actions - I sat in the driveway with the car pulled out of the garage, engine running, window down and his favorite song blasting for a full twenty minutes while he put on one pair of socks, one pair of pants, a hat, and his shoes. The shoes took a full five minutes alone.

He tried so hard to thwart the adventure and I just happened to have enough spoons to wait him out. That isn’t always the case and it doesn’t have to be. The hike not started (or cut short) is okay.  Largely because I get them too, those persistent I Don’t Wannas.

This time we did it. Next time we might not. It’s okay to let go of this particular adventure because continuing to try is the cornerstone. It’s the thing that has meant peak views and sunsets and quiet forest walks and chipmunks racing across the path. It’s the thing that has built the life, one found rock at a time.