Big Kid

At the park today, Ezri really wanted to try to climb the climbing net on the jungle gym.
She is often told that certain equipment on the playground is just for “big kids” and then steered towards safer equipment – shorter slides, toddler swings, ramps without 5 foot drops on one side.

But, today she wanted to climb so badly that I thought we’d give it go with me spotting her carefully.
She started climbing and as she rose I heard her softly chanting, “big kid, big kid, big kid, big kid” all the way up and then with a great effort she scrabbled up onto the platform at the top.
At this moment, I had to hustle up quickly to make sure she didn’t go for any of the drop offs from the platform. I hadn’t expected her to make it all the way up.
I am very proud of my big kid.
She was pretty proud of herself too.

She climbed the net again for this photo, though she did not repeat the feat of getting onto the top platform.

Later she took a tumble walking down the stairs she’s been able to navigate safely for months and I thought she may be a big kid, but she still needs watching at the park.