Monday, May 19, 2014

Brave

The McD’s in our town has a play area that consists of tubes kids can climb and slides they come tumbling down. There is also a ‘room’ at the bottom of the tubes the kids can go into that probably once held a ball pit but now is just a place for them to look out and scream for the mom to look, look, look at them.

It took Alyssa until she was about four years old to be brave enough to climb into and up the tubes and come down the slides. She was shy kid and wasn’t much interested in other kids’ invitations to play.

But at about four she became a little more socially aware and got brave.

Olivia? Still doesn’t much care about other kids and definitely hasn’t felt strong or steady enough to climb the tubes or go down the slides. She loves slides at the park but those are usually open, she can see where she’s been and where she’s going. She can also see me, which is important because I am her home base, if you will.

Last weekend, Alyssa was invited to go to Jaxon’s t-ball game with my mom. Olivia and I met them at our local McD’s after the game.

After coercing all three kids to eat even a little of the food we’d purchased, Alyssa and Jaxon made their way into the play area.

At 5’4” Alyssa is on the verge of being too big to play in those structures but when Jaxon asked her to go with him, she went gamely.

She came back out after one trip down the slide, though and took her seat next to my mom.

Olivia did her usual jumping off the step that kids use to enter the play area. She climbs the two steps up and then hurls herself off the top step.

She looked up a few times when Jaxon screeched from the top for Gram to look at him.

I saw the longing in her eyes. She wanted to go up there. She wanted to want to go up there, actually. She wanted to try but she also wanted to know that it was okay to decide it was too scary or too hard.

I asked Alyssa if she’d help her sister. I reminded her, though, that if Olivia said she didn’t want to, Alyssa shouldn’t try to force her.

I suggested to Olivia that she try to climb up with Alyssa.

Just as A and O disappeared into the first tunnel, Jaxon came down the slide. I called him over. “Hey Buddy, Alyssa and Olivia are climbing up. Will you go up behind Olivia and help her be brave?”

He gladly agreed to do this. He loves being tough.

A few minutes later, Olivia called down to me from the first level of the tunnels. She was so excited. She pressed her face to the plastic window up there and waved frantically, wanting me to see that she’d made it.

Then, minutes after that, they called down from the very top. The look of pride on O’s face was priceless. She’d done it. She’d overcome her fears and climbed to the top of the tubes. She was going to come down a slide, one with a cover on it, one she couldn’t see the end of.

They ended up climbing up and sliding down that thing for another half hour, Olivia doing the climb by herself a few times.

I’ve always known she could do it. But she didn’t know. And until she did it, with a little help from her sister and her favorite cousin, she didn’t have the confidence to even try. Once she’d taken that first brave climb? There was no stopping her.

2 comments:

AiringMyLaundry said...

How awesome!

We love going to those McDonalds playplaces.

Julie said...

Love her! What an awesome moment of accomplishment.