Leaps and bounds

Last week, one day while the kids were playing outside, I happen to catch a glance out the window to witness this little scene.

My son climbs up the ladder of the playhouse, gets to the second story, turns around and jumps right out to the ground.  The force of that little body flying 20 feet (OK, maybe not 20 feet.  Maybe more like 8) through the air sends him all the way to his bottom when he lands. 

The smile never leaves his face.  The sheer bliss of what he just accomplished.  The fear he overcame to make the leap.  That fear was nothing compared to the fear Mama was about to strike in his heart. 

As I run out of the house, leaving the water running in the kitchen sink, he's grinning at me, yelling, "Did you see that big jump, Mom?  Did you see it?"

Meanwhile, Mama is thinking that if the force of the fall didn't break his legs, I was going to.  Instead, after some stern spirit-crushing (better than bones, I figure) talking to, he climbs up to the agreed upon second step that he can jump from.  Yes, I know.  He's a little boy.  He's going to jump from scary heights.  He lives for adventure.  I want to foster his zest for life (in a non ER-visit kind of way) and not squelch it.

Its just ... Elizabeth.  If there ever was a case of monkey-see, monkey-do, its that little girl.  And this is the baby that before her second birthday had already split her chin twice and chipped a tooth.  Not to mention the very same day of the death-defying leap, her brother had split her cheekbone open and given her a blackeye with a shovel.  Don't call DCF - she walked into his path as he was shoveling.  My point is that unlike her brother, she is not proving indestructable.   

So to keep her alive, I have to put a damper on Andy's wildness.

And tonight was proof.  Andy decides he's a bird and so flaps his arms and flies off his bed and lands on the floor.  Rubber legs can handle this, even when he lands on his airplane.  Lizzy Boo is another story.  So when she climbs up on his bed and stands at the edge with her arms outstretched, Mama feels a moment of panic. She gave up her feathery pursuits to eat some Goldfish.  Disaster averted.  Temporarily.