Brooke climbed this obstacle at the park today all by herself. I was about 10 feet away, watching her, but tending to Joel. As she was climbing I reminded her to be careful, but not wanting to be overly cautious and stifle her, I left it at that. Kids need to take risks and learn their limitations. That's hard for me as a mom, but John reminds me often to let them be kids. Brooke made it all the way to the top and then, I don't know what happened. She just seemed to let go and down she came. Miraculously, she cleared the entire climbing apparatus and landed feet first. I watched as her knees buckled and she fell forward. I ran to scoop her up, afraid she'd broken her leg(s). The playground floor is a slightly springy material, but she fell from about 6 feet high.
I sat down with her on my lap and she was crying. I asked her what hurt and she said her knees did. We lifted her skirt to find she'd scraped both knees a bit. I asked if her feet hurt and she said no. The next sentence out of her shocked me, but I was so proud of her. "Mama, I want to try it again." I said ok and carefully set her down so she could walk back to the playground. The woman next to me commented, "Oh good. She can walk." That's how scary a fall she took.
We went back to the obstacle, this time with me behind her, but I didn't help at all. She climbed all the way up and made it to the top again. This time, she made it onto the platform without trouble. There was literally less than a minute of comforting from me before she was ready to tackle that mountain again. What a brave kid.
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