Swings and slides
August 17th, 2008
Daddyfeatures and I are natural born couch potatoes. We were the kids who had no natural co-ordination and always got picked last for primary school sporting teams. In short, Nerds ‘R Us.
As a result of our own miserable playground experiences, we’d really like Talia to be a life-be-in-it, have-a-go sort of child. Given her genetic inheritance and her prematurity, we figure it will take a bit of effort on our part to help her gain the confidence and the skills that we seemed to miss out on. So we’ve started by giving her experiences in the playground beyond what she might get if we worried too much.
Fortunately for us, she loves it! The swing is a daily delight and she shrieks with happiness as we push her until the chains of the swing are flying out almost horizontally. (I give thanks to the person who invented the bucket swing for toddlers!)
The slide was tolerated and she didn’t seem to mind sitting at a height almost 5 feet above the ground and sliding down on her bottom while holding my fingers. Then a couple of days ago I decided it might be interesting for her to go down on her tummy, feet first. A stroke of genius, even if I do say so myself. She was exhilarated and couldn’t wait to do it over and over - and then she climbed back up the face of the slide, for the first time ever - and not only that, but she managed to clamber all the way to the very top, twice!
As you can imagine, she was very pleased with herself, almost as proud as I was!
At this rate it will be no time before she’ll be in the front carriage of the roller coaster at the show with her eyes open and both arms in the air. If my hair isn’t grey by then no doubt it will be soon after!