The Brauchi Experience: Summer Evening Bliss...

We love lazy summer evenings. It's too hot to play outside during the day, so we usually go for a stroll up to the park or open up the back door and let the girls run around until bed time! Being as they both weren't wearing clothes, we decided this would be a more appropriate backyard day.

Calla's climbing ability (aka superpower) keeps us on our toes. We got this playground when Leslie was past 2. She couldn't climb the ladder on the back side of the swing set at all, so we decided to leave every other board off of the rock wall for her to use as a ladder. It was still difficult, but manageable for her.

Calla, on the other hand, could climb both the rock wall and ladder before she could walk! We tried taking the bottom board off to make that first step too big, but she has no trouble pulling herself up with the arms until she's up high enough to get her knee on the board! We tried to teach her that her climbing it was not allowed, but that was a horrible failure filled with screams and tears and too often, an early end to our play time. So, we finally gave in and resigned to "spotting" her on the way up should she fall. She rarely misses a step, but even when she does, her grip has always been strong enough to hold herself on and pull herself back up to a step. Now we just let her go for it, and hope that if she misses a step, her grip will hold until we get there. So far, our gamble has paid off...

Most parks we go to have extra long landings, so the kid doesn't come rocketing off the end of the the slide, but not the one at home. Calla has just recently learned to put her feet down at the end of the slide. She still "prefers" someone to catch her at the end. It's funny letting Leslie do it because "catching Calla" pretty much means Leslie standing at the bottom of the slide with her arms locked out straight at Calla. Seems like it would hurt one or both of them, but they always make it work and have lots of fun!