The other day, we took the girls to Nat’s (soon to be Selina’s) school playground for a romp. (They were really excited. Nat misses school terribly and Selina can’t wait to go too. So much for the home schooling plan.)
Nat quickly scaled the platform to the monkey bars, which she couldn’t quite reach last year, but she’s grown an inch or two in the past few months and could reach it and let go with her feet, swing out a bit then put her feet back on the platform. She’s not afraid, but she’s very cautious about all things physical. We applauded her bravery and improvement and growth.
Selina watched.
Then she ran to the platform, scaled it quickly and reached for the bars. She of course couldn’t reach them at all, being a good 6 inches shorter than Nat. But she put her hands on the part she could reach and pulled herself up to tiptoe, hand over hand until she had almost reached the first bar. Then she let go with one hand to stretch for it, missed, lost her grip with the other hand and fell at least her own height to the playground below.
Cole and I watched.
Selina sat up, woodchips clinging to the sides of her face, and grinned huge. ”Haha!” she declared, and headed back to the platform to try again.
Repeat times, roughly, four.
She isn’t reckless, but she is almost fearless. Add to this her little pigtails and her frizzles escaping them around her chubby cheeks and her insistence on wearing a “pwetty dwess!!!” every morning and you have a dream girl in the making.
Go, Selina!
Was just thinking of you yesterday. Let’s talk soon.
Love ya,
Nancy
awesome!
i love the way you captured selina in this little anecdote. “fearless” was ascribed to me by my mother who wrote it in block capitals in my baby book. it does seem that risk-taking in physical endeavors has a great deal that is hard-wired and therefore easy to recognize in young. i’ve encountered many nat types as well — they are preternaturally wary of rollercoasters — for good reason.