Travels with Baby: Hard Rock
The awesome Škocjan Caves in Slovenia test Milo's patience.
by Ayun Halliday
May 15, 2007
"I don't want to see!" he bellowed. "I! Want! To! GO!"
"Okay, okay, shh shh shh, I hear you," I whispered, hoping to avert the sort of ugly scene our fellow spelunkers might well interpret as Ugly American, juvenile division. Where the hell was Greg? A couple dozen tourists back, holding hands with our good child. "Look, Milo, we're going. We're going right now."
He looked at me suspiciously.
"What? This is the way out." It was, no lie. I just neglected to mention reaching the exit would entail at least an hour's walk. It's not like we could ditch the rest of the group to go gallivanting back the way we'd come, especially when the ranger conscientiously switched off the lights in every chamber through which we passed.
She was very thorough, that ranger, and ordinarily, I would have been quite interested in the vast quantities
"The only thing this cave is making me think," he said at last, "is how bored it makes me." of site-specific science and lore she frequently paused to impart, first in English, then Serbo-Croatian. Unfortunately, I was concentrating on doling out surreptitious chunks of granola bar, the only form of hush money I had handy.
All evidence to the contrary, I couldn't quite accept that the embers of my son's earlier enthusiasm had been snuffed for good. "Ha ha! Milo! Did you hear what she called that giant rock?"
He nodded grimly. "The Giant. So what?"
"Care to take a guess why it's called that?"
"Aargghhh! Let's GO!!!"
Whose idea had it been to yank the kids out of school and drag them around the former Yugoslavia? Oh, that's right, mine. All that lip about the global classroom? How many days to go?
As we neared the end of our ninety-minute tour, I gently reminded the little mule that many of his fellow first-graders might never get the chance to explore a cave, any cave, let alone a Slovenian cave with a 135-foot high bridge, spanning a rushing underground river. "I know you're not having the greatest time, but that's something I'd like you to think about as we go through the cave."
He faced the glistening limestone wall as he considered this advice. "The only thing this cave is making me think," he said at last, taking care to enunciate every word, "is how bored it makes me."
Unlike the swing set, an experience so joyful that ours was the last car to leave the parking lot.
©2007 Ayun Halliday and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Ayun Halliday is author of The Big Rumpus and No Touch Monkey! and the popular zine East Village Inky. She is a columnist for Bust and a frequent contributor to Babble. Visit AyunHalliday.com.
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