Climbing

Occasionally, we go to this play group thing at a local elementary school. They set up the gym with all sorts of toys and slides and play houses. I may have mentioned this place before.

They have this plastic fort thing. The walls are about 4-5 feet tall and has a shelf to clime up on about 3 feet up. From the shelf, there is a slide. Frances isn't big enough yet to just hoist herself up onto the shelf, so we've been teaching her how to use the holes in the wall to boost herself up.

In the past, I've had to help place her foot and give her a little, extra boost. Tonight, for the first time, she did it all by herself. Initially, I had to remind her to use the wall but then she was able to do the rest by herself. Pretty soon she was climbing up, sliding down and running around to do it over again, all by herself. That made me proud.

But what really had me beaming with pride was when a slightly older (and bigger) boy came up and tried to hoist himself onto the shelf. As he struggled, my little Frances crawled up right past him. I had to restrain myself from taunting the child that he had been out done by a little, tiny girl. I managed to keep that to myself (because that wouldn't have been very nice). I even told the kid's dad that we had been practicing so that he wouldn't feel bad.

But it did make me smile a big smile.

mwz