Learning to Let Go

Six months ago I received an email from my nephew, he invited us to his birthday party. The party was this last week, he was turning ten. He decided last May that he wanted it at a wall climbing center. I thought that sounds cool and over time forgot all about it. Last week I looked at the calendar and remembered all about it, yikes it was just days away. I pinned my brother down to find out the time and let my kids know.

My children can be as different as night and day, their reactions to this party showed me how true this was. My son was thrilled. He could climb walls! Where was this all his life? He couldn't wait. My daughter was excited about the party. She picked out a party dress, drew her cousin birthday pictures, planned how she would wrap his gift. She insisted I find out what his favorite color is and now is planning what kind of ribbon she will find for him.

B did decide at the last minute to bring a bag of play clothes with her just in case. It had occurred to her that a dress might not be the best thing to wear while climbing walls. Though I was sure if anyone could pull off a white dress with pink flowers while climbing a wall that she could. I am convinced that she will have grease streaks on her face as she arrives at prom with a bright pink frilly dress and hightop sneakers.

We got to the climbing center and my son was ready. He listened carefully to how to wear the harness (which was amazing in itself) and off he went with Daddy to hold onto the rope. However B wanted nothing to do with it. She hid behind me and refused to interact with anyone. This is a common occurrence at any place we go to where there are a large group of people that she has to interact with.

The part that amazes me, and sometimes frightens me is that with a group of strangers she has no problem interacting with them. She is outgoing and pretty spunky. But if we are in a group of people she knows or a group of people she knows and strangers she will hide and be super clingy to me. It was cute, but now I am trying to get her to embrace her spunk and participate at family or friend events.

My daughter and I walked to were P was climbing and I noticed the floor we were walking on was bouncy. I pointed this out to her and demonstrated how fun the floor was hoping she would un-cling herself from from my side. It worked and she started bouncing around like a kangaroo. Everyone was focused on climbing except for us. It was wonderful to see her happy and starting to break out of her fearful shell. She was thrilled that she could bound around and surprisingly the climbers had no problem with her bounding all over the place. In fact many of them took the time to watch us and smiles spread over their face. Occasionally she would stop and watch her brother climb and I asked her again if she wanted to try.

She ran to change her clothes and somehow the staff managed to get a harness to fit my daughters tiny body. She is almost seven years old and still weighs less than 40 pounds. Her brother gladly shared Daddy with her and up she went like a monkey. She was a natural! I think she went higher than P did. Like her brother she liked being lowered back down to the ground. I bet it was really cool, and no I did not climb. I enjoy having both my feet planted firmly on the ground. I was content taking photographs.

While climbing I worked on her to get her to leave my side. She was participating but still wouldn't be on her own. When I say I wanted her to leave my side, I tried to get her to go see her aunt who was maybe twenty feet away and within my line of vision. At some point I won't be able to stay with her as much as I do and I want her to be comfortable to join in the fun. I was so shy as a child that I missed out on many things. I see that starting to happen with B and I wish I could get her to learn to let go when it will help her learn to interact with her family and peers.

The day ended with a rare find. We went to a craft show and next to it was a small playground. You may think in mid November that a playground would be off limits. But it was an unseasonably warm day, I wasn't even wearing a jacket. The kids wanted to play and we thought why not. Soon the temperature will drop and the snow will fall. This maybe the last playground they play in this year.

In this playground was a small merry-go-round. This is something you don't find on many playground in our area. We had one in a playground near us but it has been removed. My children were thrilled to see it and excitedly ran to it begging Daddy to spin them. Then the air was filled with giggles and pleas for Daddy to spin them faster. They stopped briefly to use the slide one time, but that was not as much fun as getting dizzy so back they went to the merry-go-round. Now they can't wait to go back to that small playground. Funny it has much less to play on than the playgrounds near us, but that playground is all they are talking about now. I wonder if they will remember it in the spring?