Lessons From The Slide

Yesterday, we babysat "the grands" for a couple hours. I decided I didn't want to make supper so we figured we'd go out. Since one of them is a fussy eater (and the other will eat anything), I decided we better get some chicken nuggets and fries. Unfortunately, the nuggets were the wrong shape and the fries turned out to be steak fries so they didn't pass muster with the fussy eater. But I'm told the chocolate milk was good. Anyway, after eating we went over to the duck pond. The kids liked watching the ducks swim below the bridge.

We'd no sooner mentioned the idea of going to the park when both kids lit up and all they could talk about was the slide. Of the two kids, Jackson is the experienced "slider". Slides are relatively new to little sister Carly (who is a month short of turning two years old). A couple weeks ago we took them to the park and I was quite impressed that Carly was willing to go down the slide all by herself, albeit on her stomach.

The thing about the "little kid" slide is that you only have to go up a couple steps and you're on top, ready to slide down to the bottom. But the little kid slide at this park held absolutely no interest for Carly. She saw the big slide and that was the object of her desire.

The first thing she had to do was make it up the step to even get headed toward the slide. It wasn't easy with her little legs but she was focused and made it. She also had to get past a lot of other kids (there was t-ball at the park so there were about 15 other kids on the same playground equipment).

One of her early obstacles was crossing the "shaky bridge". It wasn't easy for a little girl to stay upright when the older kids were making it shake like an earthquake, but as you can tell by the expression on her face, she was determined.

Once she got across the shaky bridge, she had a huge ladder to climb. As you can see, the steps are quite a span for her little legs. I never thought she'd make it up the first one, much less up them all. She just took it step-by-step.Once she got up the ladder, she let out a squeal of delight. She knew that she was accomplishing some pretty big stuff in her young life. Although in her life time she will be presented with much larger challenges, for what it is, this was quite a challenge for her and she was rising to the occasion. I mean, after all, we have to start somewhere don't we?
There was more than one set of steps and ladders to get over/up in order to get to the top of the slide. At each of these points she pushed on to reach higher than she was used to reaching. She was in new territory but didn't let that psyche her out. She never asked for help. She never questioned her ability to succeed. She remained confident and focused. Despite the fact it was difficult for her, she knew that the reward at the end was going to be worth all the work.

It didn't matter if she had to get on her knees. She knew what she wanted and she was going to do what it took to get to it.

Once she reached the top, she wasted no time in coming down. I wondered if she would be afraid to come down the big slide but not only did she not hesitate, she didn't take it the safer "on the stomach" method.

It was a bigger challenge than what she was used to, but sometimes the reward is in accepting, and ultimately conquering, the challenge. The 3 second thrill of the slide itself was just the icing on the cake. Do we sometimes need to be reminded of that?

Whatever your challenge is today - I wish you victory in conquering it.