Av is Brave

It's the theme of the summer. Maybe of the past year. She just finished her first year of preschool, after all, in which she learned how to stick up for herself on the playground. Since the summer started, though, she's been especially driven to push her own limits. It started during our PA visit in June. (An aside: when I think about it, every time we've crossed the Mason-Dixon line with Av, she's had some sort of developmental leap or change, or something major happens to her. That's another post.) Anyway, the creek walk was the first thing. Nanny had bought her a pair of pink water shoes, which became like Jack's magic beans or something. She felt invincible in those things, and was quietly very proud of herself for her competence at slogging through rushing water and navigating over piles of slippery rocks. Not for the faint of heart, is the creek walk. There are fish and other critters, huge fallen trees in your path, a swimming hole that can be deep enough for an adult to submerge in, depending on when it last rained, and lots of unstable rocks. Four years old is about the youngest you can be and get through it without hanging from somebody's hand, at least not the entire time. In other words it's an awesome adventure for a little kid. Watching her do it made me wish I could offer her that kind of adventure on a daily basis.

Next was my sister's pool. I know, intellectually, that it's normal for a kid her age to learn physical skills by leaps and bounds if simply given the opportunity, but it still makes me feel wonder and amazement to watch. Last summer in K's pool she learned that if she puts on a pair of arm swimmies in combination with a floaty vest, she's unsinkable. So she did that all summer in the above-ground pool we put up in our back yard. This year we bought a bigger, deeper pool so that she could advance her skills without expensive lessons. She'd been playing in that for a good month before we went to PA; I guess she was ready for a challenge. So in my sister's pool there's a diving board in the deep end, and at one point the kids were taking turns jumping off the diving board onto this big blow-up shark. The pictures I took are blurry because I used the zoom, but you can tell it's her in mid-air, and you can even see the intense look of concentration on her face as she's staring down at her blue vinyl quarry. I was amazed that she even jumped off the diving board in the first place; one day she was fending off dares from her cousins to jump into the hands of her aunt or uncle waiting in the water below; the next she was taking a running leap off the board without checking if there were any adult eyes on her, let alone someone waiting to catch her. In fact I think the space between these two contingencies was about an hour, not a day, now that I think about it.

Next on the list: underwater swimming. This she learned (taught herself) on the 4th of July, back here at home while Nanny was visiting. I described this in an earlier post, so I won't rehash it other than to reiterate that it belongs in the Avery Bravery category. After this, she's really feeling her oats. So a few days later we're at the mall, and at our mall they have a bungie/bouncy ride...thingie. Suffice it to say you bounce on a trampoline while belayed to long lengths of bungie cord, so you can bounce super high. She's passed by this apparatus a number of times since she was old enough to notice it, but suddenly this time she was determined to do it. I'm sure every parent has the internal freak-out I had: should I let her do this? Can I handle watching my little girl being hoisted two stories into the air? Is there any way she can fly out of that thing? Who will I sue if that happens? After a moment of thought, I let her do it, mostly because I knew, really, that it was safe and the only reason not to let her had to do with my fear, not hers. I liked the way she handled it - excited but careful at first, taking small jumps until she could feel how high it was going to send her. The well-trained teenage attendant adjusted the rubber bands a couple of times and kept asking Av for feedback on how high she wanted to go, how she was liking the sensations. By the end of the three or so minutes allotted, she was exclaiming happily that she could see all the way down the hallway of the mall. I was wishing I had forked out the extra three bucks for the picture.

What else? The other day she talked me into buying her a slip-and-slide, and insisted on setting it up over the steepest incline she could find in our yard. Yesterday at the grocery store she finally touched the live lobster, virtually fondled the thing, instead of just staring at it dangling from the tongs the meat guy fishes it out of the tank with. She's on a tear. I'm proud of her, in case that's not obvious.