Swings and slides

I think some days it is too easy to worry about your premature child, especially if they have had problems with their health at some point, and not give them the freedom to take the sort of risks other parents might take for granted.

My husband and I are not Olympic medal material. We were the sort of kids who always got picked last for school sporting teams. In spite of this, we’d really like Talia to be a life-be-in-it, have-a-go sort of child. Given her genetic inheritance and her prematurity, we figure it will take a bit of effort on our part to help her gain the confidence and the skills that we seemed to miss out on. So we’ve started by giving her experiences in the playground beyond what she might get if we worried too much.

Fortunately for us, she loves it! The swing is a daily delight and she shrieks with happiness as we push her until the chains of the swing are flying out almost horizontally. (I give thanks to the person who invented the bucket swing for toddlers!)

The park has a few slides, including a straight one about 5 foot high. Talia tolerated going down the slide on her bottom while holding my fingers. Then a couple of days ago I decided it might be interesting for her to go down on her tummy, feet first. It was slightly frightening to let her go down by herself the first time I did it - but she was exhilarated and couldn’t wait to do it over and over. Then she climbed back up the face of the slide, for the first time ever - and right up to the top at one point!

As you can imagine, she was very pleased with herself, almost as proud as I was!

At this rate it will be no time before she’ll be in the front carriage of the roller coaster at the show with her eyes open and both arms in the air. If my hair isn’t grey by then no doubt it will be soon after!