Slip-Sliding Away

We love fall around here. The leaves, they are a'changing and while the weather has been mostly mild for Northern Indiana/Ohio, we're expecting a cold snap soon.

On Saturday, the girls and I had to make a mad dash to Meijer and get some sparkly shoes for them to wear to my cousin's wedding. Olivia ended up with her very own pair of ruby slippers and Alyssa were the bigger, more silvery-less red version of the same shoe.

So many sparkles!

Then we each picked out a pumpkin and headed home.

The pumpkin carving was lovely. There was a brisk wind whipping leaves around while Alyssa and I made a mess on the front porch and Olivia climbed up and down the four steps up to the porch.

Just as I finished cleaning out the third pumpkin, Olivia edged up to me and asked, "Can we please go to the park today?"

Can we?

Alyssa and I finished up our pumpkins and left Olivia's for later (a later that hasn't yet arrived) and headed for the park, knowing this might be our last visit to the park this year.

We went to an old park in our new town.

This park is so old that it still has a merry-go-round. A metal, ever-so-dangerous merry-go-round.

They loved it!

They especially loved it when I almost landed on my butt as the merry-go-round spun and spun.

We wandered from the swings, the metal horse that rocks back and forth and the merry-go-round. All the while, Olivia eyed the slide.

I finally asked her if she wanted to go try it.

She shook her head.

I suggested that I go with her.

She gave it some thought and decided that would be quite lovely, thank you very much.

So we climbed the 15 stairs to the top of the slide, did some quick steps and slid down the slide with her on my lap.

She raced back to the stairs to do it again. And again. And again.

After the tenth or so time going down with me, we got to the top and she asked, "Can I try it by myself?"

Oh.

Well...sure.

But I told her to wait there, at the top of the slide, so very high up, for me to climb back down teh steps so I could catch her at the bottom.

It was a fast slide!

And she did it. And then she did it again and again and again.

My baby is getting big. She's getting independent. She's realizing that she can do these things that other kids take for granted. She getting brave and adventurous and while it sort of gives me heart palpitations, it also makes me proud.

I realize that Tom and I and even my mom tend to baby and coddle Olivia. But she's still on the clumsy side. She falls, she trips. And while gymnastics has taught her to fall right, to catch herself, or to at least not land on her face, we get nervous.

But she's teaching us to let go. She's reminding us that she's not a baby anymore.

Heck, that 'baby' learned to whistled this weekend. That was pretty cool too.

(For the uninformed, Treet is a 'meat' product that is even grosser than Spam.)