Leaps and Bounds (and tentative steps)

Last weekend you may remember that we were at REI and the Lamb was fascinated by the rock climbing wall. Seven days later her enthusiasm had not worn off, and as promised, we headed off to give it a try. I will admit here that my anxiety level was moderate to high. I knew that she probably wouldn't get hurt (she wasn't) and that they were professionals there (they were), but something inside of me didn't want to see her disappointed, or worse, discover that she has a terrific fear of heights or something. It's just in my nature to want everything to go well.

We got there and after a brief wait, the Professor and the Lamb got all suited up. The idea was that Baba go first, to show her "how". He did so, dutifully. Having climbed in high school I think he enjoyed the memories (but not the lack of upper body strength).


Next the Lamb was all ready go.


This is her standing next to the wall, getting a pep talk from Ozayr and the REI staffer, Hassan (go figure).


This involved Hassan saying at one point, "you're not going to fall because of this rope, see?" You fool! I thought to myself. The Lamb is at a delicate age: she does not consider failure. It's a beautiful thing and it's why this age is perfect for them to try lots of new things. If she wants to do something, she wants to do it, plain and simple - she does not back down because she thinks she will be awful or unable (if only we could stay that way our entire lives!!). This is tempered by an extreme suggestibility - if mommy and daddy think it's a bad idea she will NOT do it. See why I had to hide my anxiety? Not that I want to sugar-coat things, but I was unsure it was wise to point out the high risk of falling, or rather not falling... luckily they managed to get her started before she really started thinking about it all too hard...

And up she went.

I think it went rather well for her first time. The thing you may or may not know about my girl is that, well, she's four. She tends to get absorbed in her surroundings and tune out what she's supposed to be doing at the time. Like at the grocery store, I'm at the end of the aisle and turn around to find I've left her 15 feet behind, looking at the pictures on the label of a can of soup. Anyway this happened at about 10 feet. In her defense it was probably pretty interesting up there, looking at all the other climbers, the view, the tops of our heads... But there was a lot of calling her name trying to get her to decide whether she wanted to keep climbing or just come down. She came down in the end, and then went back up to around the same spot again once more.


Poor little Lion watched patiently from the sidelines, obviously itching to get at it. Being light and wiry I'm sure that she'll be good at it one day, but in the meantime she has a good foot to grow before she qualifies. The root of a lot of our problems with her these days come down to the fact that the Lion cub thinks she's four too. She's working at catching up as fast as she can.

It was a successful trip all round, and in our celebratory state we picked up hot chocolates for everyone on the way home (they even made a soy one...).


Of course I'm incredibly proud that she wanted to try something new, adventurous even, and went ahead and did it. And there's another element, a whole new threshold that we crossed today: my child has now done something that I have never even tried... WOW.