Sliding

So, as you may have guessed, Annie is a bit of a cautious child. This is absolutely awesome in terms of my blood pressure and confidence in her ability to NOT crack her head open.

When we are at playgrounds or really anywhere, we try hard to not help her out with anything - she does what she has the ability to do, and no more. It seems much safer to me, and on the occasions that we HAVE helped her up somewhere, it's become obvious that she gets a bit overconfident and then either wants us to do it for her all the time (super annoying) or ends up hurting herself. For example - going down the slide - a few times, we'd put her up at the top and hold her on the way down. The few times we hadn't been there to hold her, her head flew back and hit the slide, or she climbed up to the top of the big playground and threw herself headfirst down the slide, getting a nice mouthful of dirt at the bottom. Lovely! Same with stairs - we haven't been helping her on stairs, ever, so she seems to be PRETTY good about going up and down in a way that is safe. Here's hoping she continues that trend!

Anyway, we visited a playground with Rebekah and Adelaide this weekend that was perfectly Annie sized - she could climb up to the top of the slide herself and since she got herself up there, I decided to not help her and see how she did going down on her own.

Observe - (spoiler alert - she DOES eventually go down each time) try #1 was a bit rocky - I was worried she would start crying because she kind of hits her head on the side of the slide, but she jumped up and went back for more so I guess she was okay!

Try number 2. This one is super long. Whoa. She maybe was a bit gun shy from hitting her face the time before.

Finally, 3rd time is a charm - only at the top for 30 seconds this time, versus 2 MINUTES!

I find her caution kind of hilarious, especially when compared with other kids her age. Blogger friend Kristal's son is just a few days older, and you can see his very different behavior on a slide here :) It's really not surprising, given that I refused to go on the KIDDY roller coaster at Valleyfair until I was nearly too tall for it (um, that thing is not scary by the way. very tame. Obviously). I also got up to a 5 foot "cliff" in Hawaii and refused to jump off into the water because I was too scared, instead climbing back down the long way. So HOPEFULLY, Annie takes after me and will continue to be cautious, but I know she might gain some confidence and start climbing and being a daredevil any day now.... I'm hoping for no on that one though!