Taking a Leap

A few weeks ago we went to good ol' Burley Idaho for John's cousins reunion. While there, we visited a huge slippery slide

 made of a long piece of rubber on a hill with water spraying on it. Everyone would get a tube and slide down it. I spent most of our time there 

watching, filming, and taking pictures because I had recently knocked a knife off the counter into my toenail and was told by the podiatrist not to soak it in order to avoid infections (this was much better than what they had told me when I called which was that I would most likely have to have the whole toenail removed..Aghh!). Anyway, what was really interesting was to watch Aria. She so desperately wanted to do it by herself and was so scared. She'd get to the top with her little tube, sit down to go, then start crying as she got back up again and ran away. She did this over and over and cried harder and harder with each attempt. It was a cry of being afraid and a cry of being upset that she wanted to do it so much and just couldn't get herself to take that leap. She knew she'd be okay, she'd gone with Daddy multiple times, she watched everyone else do it, and yet she just couldn't let herself go, and she was so mad/sad at herself for it. After going with cousin Adria one more time she got up the nerve to do it alone but only if someone would catch her. Big mistake. Poor cousin Riley and Aria smacked into each other with a pretty good force. Everyone survived but Aria was now mad that he tried to stop her, mad enough that she went right back up to go down on her own, which was the beginning of many, many trips down that slide. How wonderful it was to watch her overcome her fear and take that leap. And, how much it reminded myself of me, her very cautious mama who was happy to have an excuse to sit on the side until finally, inspired by her daughter went down as well holding her toe in the air away from the water. Forget about getting me on the zipline though.

... maybe next year.