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My “Free Spirited” Child

So, one of my goals this summer was to spend some time getting to know my second born child. She’s what I like to call a “free spirit”. She’s really a sweet child, and tries hard to please, but I feel like we’re constantly fussing at her for things like spilling her water (for the 1,000th time!), stepping on my feet (also for the 1,000th time), dropping her bowl of cheerios on the floor, and so on. All avoidable accidents in my opinion. She’s like that dog on “up” who’s going along great but when he see’s a squirrel everything else is forgotten. Yup, the bowl of cereal is there, and you’re eating it, but you get distracted with a toy or something and bump the cereal off the table with your elbow. I try hard not to be upset because it is an accident, but you’ve got to pay attention to what you’re doing! So, my goal has been to figure out how to connect with her so that we’re enjoying each other more and it’s not just constant frustration.

My first born, I understand, I’m a firstborn and she’s a lot like me. A rule-follower, likes to keep everyone happy, a bit of an over-achiever, and fairly confident that in everything she does, no one can do it better (even if the child standing next to her in ballet class is way better than her).

My second-born on the other hand, is a total mystery. She’s pretty much always in her own little world, very spontaneous, blissfully happy one second and melting down the next, and in general hard to figure out. So, I’ve been paying a lot of attention to her moods. What makes her happy, and what is it that she likes to do. Surprisingly, she’s not actually that difficult to understand, she’s just a lot different than me so I have to consider things from her perspective.

Some interesting things I figured out.

1. A hug goes a long way – if she’s melting down, just sitting out the couch with her for 5 minutes can turn her day into “beautiful bouquets of flowers” – literally, I’m fairly sure this is how she thinks about it. She loves to come in my room early in the morning – sometime between 3am and when we get up, I’m not sure of the exact time because I’m asleep – and just snuggle in bed. She’s always happy on these mornings so I’ve quit trying to send her back to her bed but instead I just make room for her. And it makes sense, as a baby, there were nights she just wanted to sleep lying on my chest on the couch. If she’s upset and I need her to talk to me, just holding her hand while we talk helps her calm down. (now, if I was upset, this would irritate me, so I’m doing the opposite of what I would like)

2. Spontaneity is fun (and does not come naturally to me) – So, she wants to walk through the sanctuary instead of the hall on the way out of Church, it actually doesn’t take any extra time, it’s just not the usual route, we detour through the sanctuary and she skips the rest of the way to the car. Made her day, and honestly only requires that I pay attention and participate in something she considers novel.

Or, why she feels compelled to smush her face agains the screen door EVERY TIME she comes inside is a mystery to me, but I just smile and say hello, she says “hi” and continues on. I’m learning to just roll with it.

3. She loves to accessorize – I like accessories, like small hoop earrings, thin chain necklaces, and bracelets that don’t make noise when I use my hand. She on the other hand, likes to go through my jewelry box and pick out the largest, jangliest necklace she can find and wear it. Currently she’s wearing this bulky gold chain (don’t worry, not real gold) that I never wear because it’s just too large for me. I think she thinks her outfit’s not complete without a little bit of “bling” so I just roll with it. She is pretty cute running around in her princess dress, flip-flops, and mommy’s necklace.

4. She needs her space – being the middle child isn’t easy. Her older sister is constantly telling her what to do, and her little brother is constantly in her space stealing her sippy cup and snacks. Some days she just wanders off to her room alone, I’ll poke my head in and ask if she’s ok and she’s happily playing barbies or ponies by herself and perfectly happy about being alone. She doesn’t want company and I don’t feel compelled to make her join us. She’ll be out in an hour or so when she’s ready to see people again.

5. Praise her when I can – she got a certificate at preschool the other day for ending her day at the top of the behavior chart – the kids start in the middle so you have to be extra helpful to make it to the top – I made sure she remembered to show it to her Dad at supper time and explained to him what it meant. She was super excited to have made it to “pink” at class, plus get the certificate, and get to show it to everyone. It was a good day for her. She really likes to help, so a lot of times I praise the attempt, while she’s helping me clean up the mess. I’ve learned not to fuss at her too much, she already knows that she should have watched where she was going so she wouldn’t make a mess. I try to focus on what she was trying to accomplish and how good she is at helping me clean it up.

6. Let her help – even if it means a mess. Inside, I cringe every time I hand her a glass of water to carry or a plate of food to take to the table. Most of the time she makes it fine, but about 5% of the time she gets distracted on her way from the counter to the table and the water gets dumped or stuff starts rolling off the plate. It’s just a part of childhood and I’ve learned to keep an eye on her and refocus her when she needs it. And, I try to give her mostly mistake-proof jobs. Assigning her the job of giving everyone a fork at dinner is a great job for her. I hand her 5 forks and she distributes them, it’s hard to make a mess with that one.

7. Most importantly of all, just embrace and enjoy her unique personality – It is, after all, how God made her. And the more I stop trying to make her personality conform to mine, the more I see how sweet and fun she really is.

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My Arla Dofino House Party

My latest party from House Party was for Arla Dofino cheese. Honestly, this has probably been my favorite house party so far! I got accepted as a host, sent out my invites, and reviewed the list of items I would be receiving. Insulated lunch totes and cheese. So, I’m expecting cheap lunch totes with the Arla Dofino logo, nope, they were nice Thermos insulated lunch totes in pink, blue, or black. Everyone who came to the party thought they were awesome. Sometimes at these house parties I have trouble giving away the favors (not everyone wanted wooden spoons at one party) but I had no problem getting guests to take these. Everyone needs a new lunch tote!

The cheese shipped directly from Arla Dofino, and I was really impressed with what was inside. Three different rounds – Gouda, Smoked Gouda, and Edam, two packages of sandwich slices – Gouda and Havarti, two triangles – fontina, and gouda, and five blocks of Havarti – Dill, Lite, Creamy, Smoked, and Jalapeño. There was lots and lots of cheese! I was expecting a couple of blocks so I was trying to plan what other things to serve with my cheese, but when my cheese arrived I realized that there was so much cheese, I could focus everything around the cheese.

We had a cheese tray, I cut the cheese in little blocks for easy eating. I did dill and cucumber sandwiches with the havarti dill, these were awesome! I made little cheese crackers with bacon bits on top, warmed them in the oven till the cheese started melting, these were gobbled up first. And the rounds, I set out on the chopping block with some cheese knives. I had pears and apples chopped in squares, and pepperoni and sausage as well as four different kids of crackers.

I’d never tried Arla Dofino cheese before – normally I purchase the store brand from the fridge section – and it was very delicious. Even the jalapeño cheese wasn’t overpoweringly spicy, it was just right. I’m always trying to figure out a good cheese try for holiday parties and after trying out all these cheeses, I now know what cheeses make the right variety cheese tray! Which means, I’ll be buying more when the holidays get here!

This was such a fun laid-back house party, everyone ate cheese, and hung out and chatted for hours.

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Did I Brush My Hair Today?

So, we all have those days. Actually, I’d say more than 50% of the time is one of “those mornings”. You know, the morning where you start to get ready, get interrupted, try again, get interrupted again, try again, and somewhere around 2 when you need to run an errand you really can’t remember if you brushed your teeth, washed your face, or brushed your hair, and while you seem to have clothing on, you don’t really remember how that came about.

Like, this morning, I put in a movie for the kids and hopped in the shower, hoping the toddler didn’t notice my absence for a little while. Well, of course, he heard me turn on the shower, so he appeared in the bathroom hot chocolate in one hand, and waffle in the other, crying about my absence before I even had time to get my hair wet. He also felt the need to supervise the entire shower time, lest I somehow disappear from sight while in the shower and am never heard from again. Hmmm…that is tempting…

Or, like two days ago, I got up, and the two littlest were up, so I gave them hot chocolate and turned on their morning show then went back to the bedroom to get ready. I was halfway through changing out of my pjs when one of them appeared in need of breakfast, so I finished dressing and then fixed them breakfast (also had to hunt for my coffee around this point because I couldn’t remember where I’d left it). Once they were eating, I returned to my room and brushed my hair, my oldest woke up at this point and needed an unspecified item for breakfast, so I had to help her look through the fridge and pick out a yogurt. I returned to the bathroom to brush my teeth and in the midst of this little man who had finished his waffle decided to steal his sister’s. Which did not make her happy, so I had to go make another set of waffles, at which point I got distracted on getting schoolwork started for the kids, and a few other things I had to do for the morning (like cleaning the kitchen, picking up toys, checking e-mail, etc.). Baby boy went down for his nap, we finished school, and around noon I decided that since I couldn’t remember washing my face, I should probably go do that, just in time for the toddler to wake up for lunch…

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Why I Circumcised My Son

When I found out I was expecting a boy I decided that I really needed to research circumcision. My husband wanted to have our son circumcised, but I didn’t see the point. Seems like an unnecessary medical procedure to me.

So I did my research, there’s lots, and lots, and lots, and lots of info and articles out there on why to and why not to circumcise. What I concluded after all this reading was that there may possibly be some small medical benefit to being circumcised and there is a small risk of infection or complications after the procedure. So, my online research pretty much left me still undecided. There’s not enough medical benefit for me to be like we have to do this and there’s not enough risk to outweigh the benefit for me to say we can’t do this! My biggest struggle was finding actual factual articles instead of all these opinions written by people who really don’t know anything about the topic.

Now that I was more confused than when I started, I started asking friends who have boys. I didn’t ask “why did you circumcise?”, I asked “did you circumcise, and how hard was it to care for if you did?”. I discovered two things. 1. Almost all of my friends sons were circumcised (at least the ones I asked for advice were). 2. Most of my friends were like me, really didn’t see the importance of this, but, like me, their husband’s really wanted their son’s circumcised, so that’s what they did. Also, baby care after circumcision really wasn’t difficult.

Next, my husband and I had a discussion about this. I expressed my concerns about this being an unnecessary medical procedure and how I didn’t see the point. He felt that there were medical benefits and he wanted his son circumcised. He didn’t see why I had an issue with it. Seems like pretty much all of my friends has similar discussions with their husbands when their first son came along, so this seems to be a guy thing.

My conclusion, this is his son just as much as he is mine, and since he is the father, I think he has a right to make decisions like this in regards to his son (on the flip side, I think I should be allowed to get the girl’s ears pearced whenever I think they’re old enough – but that’s another discussion for another day). Really, I expect my husband to be the primary instructor of my son when it comes to his body, sexuality, and any other boy matters so it’s unreasonable for me to tell him at the beginning of our son’s life that he can’t make our first important decision about our son.

We got our son circumcised. Because I had a home birth he wasn’t circumcised in the hospital. I had to get a referral from my pediatrician. Along this process I discovered some interesting things.

1. It’s primarily women who discuss circumcision and their opinions of it. It’s also primarily women who have a negative view of circumcision – and if they don’t have a negative view, they really have no opinion (like me), very few women are adamant that their sons must be circumcised. My midwife was very opposed to it. I found this to be odd because it is men who are circumcised, not women. Probably men are less likely to discuss such things – and women being the primary caregivers of infants we are the ones who have to care for our sons after they are circumcised, so we have more opinions.

2. Men seem to be much more set in their opinion about circumcision but, they don’t seem to think that it’s a controversial topic. You are or you aren’t, it’s not a big deal. Generally, if they’re circumcised, they want their sons to be. If they’re not, their sons probably are not either. They really care if their boys are or aren’t but they don’t care a bit about whether other friend’s boys are or aren’t.

I have a male Pediatrician (I get along better with male doctors so I purposely picked a male pediatrician for my kids). I brought the baby in for his first infant checkup (2 days old) and the dr asks me in the course of the checkup if I plan to circumcise. I replied “yes”. He said something to the effect of “because we want him to be like daddy” (it wasn’t a condemnation, it was a statement of fact, I said yes, I want my son circumcised, and the Dr assumed that my husband is – and there’s no problem with that), and said that he would set up an appointment for me for a few days after baby boy was a week old (apparently, blood clotting is better after 8 days so waiting until the baby is closer to 2 weeks old is even less risky). There was no, “I think circumcision is a good thing, or I think it’s a bad thing” (it should be noted that immunizations are considered a good thing and to not immunize is bad – so my dr does have opinions), it was simply “he needs to be like his dad”.

In the end, I’m definitely not going to go out and say everyone should or everyone shouldn’t circumcise. But, I do think that it’s a Father’s right to decide. In this day of complaining about Father’s not taking on their responsibilities, why do we as women think that we should be making this decision for our men? It’s obviously a guy thing – has to do with locker rooms, being like daddy, and who knows what else, nothing of which makes sense to me.

When it comes down to it, why did I circumcise my son? The answer is simple. Because that’s what his Daddy wanted.

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Frozen

I’ve had several people say that Frozen is Disney’s best movie since The Lion King (Two-Disc Platinum Edition). I’ve only seen Lion King once and it just wasn’t for me – I think it was all the animals, I like movies better with people. Not that it’s a bad movie, it’s just not something I’ll watch over and over again. I love Frozen though, I’ve probably seen it 10 times since it came out – I don’t love it THAT much, but I have young kids who do and since I like the movie too, we watch it a lot.

Apparently, I’m not alone, because Disney Frozen merchandise is really hard to come by. And, every single one of my kid’s friends knows the songs (even the boys).

But, think about all the movies between Frozen and Lion King, there’s a lot of them. So, what is so great about Frozen?

What appeals to me, is the sacrifice. There’s not a lot of movies these days that show a sister willing to sacrifice her life for her sister. Anna gave up her chance to live when she saved her sister Elsa at the end of the movie. (of course, in true Disney fashion, Anna didn’t die, but the point is, she was willing to, and she showed that with her actions). Also, the love story wasn’t just about being swept off your feet and falling “in love” it was about working through tragedy together. (and, there were no randomly singing chipmunks, skunks, or animals cleaning the houses). Not that I’m against falling in love – but very few people fall in love at first sight and live happily ever after.

Ultimately, I’m all for my kids watching this move over and over and over and over again because I like the story, and I like the “putting others before yourself” concept that it portrays.

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Why I Don’t Have A Van

Husband (to me) “I want you to have the car that you want”. Me to husband, “I WANT a Mini Cooper, but that’s not very practical.”

Now you know how our van shopping is going! My husband remarked the other day that a mini-van seems to be some sort of status symbol among moms, you know, you have one kid and go buy the mini-van as fast as you can because now you’re a mom…or something like that. Hmmm, somehow, I missed the need for that status symbol. I’m still coming to grips with the fact that if I have one more child I will have no choice but to purchase a van.

Currently, I have 3 kids in the back of our SUV (yes, in their carseats). It’s kinda nice, I can reach them to do things like recover dropped flip-flops and share drinks. I know that’s not happening in a van!

So, why don’t I have a van? For starters they’re expensive! We’ve decided on a Honda Odyssey and my goodness, I can pay off my house, or buy a van! Actually, not quite pay off my house, but it’s pretty close. My SUV was nowhere near that expensive.

But really, it comes back to state of mind. I remarked to a friend the other day that I really sympathize with those girls who find themselves with an unwanted/unplanned pregnancy. You see, I didn’t plan my first child, she was a surprise. Now, when I found out I was pregnant, I was in a good position to be pregnant. I was married almost 2yrs, had 3 months of school left so I would definitely finish before the baby arrived, my husband had a good job – I actually wasn’t working at the time but I was getting ready to start hunting for a job for after school was over. My husband was excited, my family was excited, his family was excited. So, suddenly finding myself pregnant shouldn’t have necessarily been that bad.

But, getting pregnant just wasn’t in my plans for a few years. Once I got over the initial shock – actually, that happened at the exact same time that the baby arrived, I was happy to be a mom. And if I had to do it over, I wouldn’t change a thing. I love being a mom! That said, even though I now have 3 kids – once we had one child, why wait to go ahead and have more! Anyways, there just some things I haven’t done. I never joined the Mom’s group at Church – I just couldn’t. And I have not purchased a van. If people ask what I do I don’t say “referee, taxi service, chef, housekeeper, and mom”, I say, “I’m a graphic designer, I play in a band, I sew, etc.”.

Of course, there are some things I have done. I have a mommy blog (but you knew that already). I do all sorts of activities with my kids (just today we were at a kid’s event at the park). When asked what she wants to be when she grows up, my oldest will tell you that she wants to be a mom. But I’ve been holding out on the van. I’m sure I’ll like it once I have it, but what’s the hurry?

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Our First Pagent

A few weeks ago my 5yr old tried out her first pagent. If you’re looking for a pagent, National American Miss (NAM) really wasn’t bad. Everything starts and ends on time – and since I love schedules, this was awesome! Everyone’s polite, the kids are nice, etc. I had read up on some reviews before deciding to actually do this, so I wasn’t expecting “Toddlers and Tiaras”. Overall, the pagent is run professionally.

Most importantly, my 5yr old had fun. She’s already talking about going again next year.

Here’s the thing, it’s about $500 just to enter the pagent, plus you have your hotel and food on top of that. However, if you actually want at chance at winning the pagent, you have to enter all the “extra” activities, so the total pagent cost is closer to $1,000 just to enter. The winner does get a modeling contract, so this kind of makes sense. They say all over the place that the extra activities are not required to win, but really, there wasn’t a single girl up there in the “queen’s court” who hadn’t done every single extra activity. So, if you’re going to go, you kinda have to do it all.

Then, you add outfits on top of all this, and things start really getting expensive! They do do a professional photo shoot in the girl’s formal gowns, which is really nice (of course that’s extra).

It was a little tough having the younger kids along – really just the 1yr old was tough, the 3yr old would have had way more fun if I wasn’t keeping up with the 1yr old the whole time. If we do it again I may have to figure something else out for the little kids.

My opinion, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought, I’m glad my 5yr old enjoyed it, I’m not sure if we’re doing it again, I’m going to have to think some more about that. The thing is, if you want to win, you really do have to focus some more on modeling and acting and I have to decide if that’s a route we’re willing to let our girls pursue.

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Totally Random

Wow, so, I missed my usual Tuesday post by three days! And I just remembered today! Of course, with my crazy busy summer, I’m not totally surprised. I even has a post planned, it just didn’t get typed up. So, be watching for my post on Tuesday about our experience with our first pagent.

Some weeks, like this week, I’m grateful that I like to plan. For the past two weeks I’ve been running back and forth from my house to our rental house (with the kids) showing the house to all kinds of people – and I really mean, all kinds of people… Anyways, hopefully we have a family signing a lease tomorrow. So all my running around will pay off!

Back to planning. We’re starting some school on Monday – my plan is to do school on the days we aren’t busy (until our local public school year starts and then we’ll do all 5 days a week) which will create some extra days we can take off for fun things like the water park with the family. I sent in my registration weeks before the deadline (which was yesterday) and I ordered all my school books weeks ago (received the last one yesterday). Because if I had to order them this week, it never would have happened.

I only wish I could preemptively do housework and then my house would be clean today. Today we have a day at home, and aside from going stir-crazy, it’s been a good day. My kitchen is clean, the baby’s room is clean, my bedroom is clean (well almost, the roomba is finishing up for me), laundry is going, and I can’t decide, do I tackle the girl’s room or the rec room next? I’m not sure which one is more daunting. Maybe I’ll do the rec room while the girls clean their room and then help them finish up – but, who am I kidding, if I’m downstairs, they probably won’t do any cleaning!

I need to go finish a few things before baby boy wakes up from his nap.

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My crazy busy week

Sometimes, I think I have it all worked out. I like to plan, so the occasional feeling of having everything under control is really nice. And then, that’s just now how it works out. Oh well, at least I had a plan, that I added to, and rearranged into next week, so I can continue to add to it and rearrange. You get the idea. I’m thinking sometime next month I may actually have it all worked out again…just in time for school to start…Or not.

By the end of last week I was down to laundry, clean bathrooms, and some shopping for my oldest’s pagent this weekend – and then things happened. I had a new project come in for work (I freelance from home so if I have lots of projects, my house looks like I have lots of projects), actually 3 projects, but they’re related to each other so it’s technically 1 project with 3 items.

Anyways…then I was joining a friend at her yardsale this weekend and I had about 10 small boxes of stuff (mostly clothing and toys) to take over. Well…our tenants moved out of our rental and left a trailer full of furniture, so I spent two days cleaning out the house and carting everything over to the yardsale. (thankfully, KARM is picking up any yardsale leftovers so I don’t have to cart things away) And a few more days cleaning the house. Plus in the middle of all this, my car is locking into 4wheel drive when I’m only in 2, a SUV with a terrible turn radius isn’t fun to drive at all! Right now, It’s my second day without my car – I “should” have it back tonight. Not holding my breath though.

I so desperately need to go grocery shopping that I mentioned something about it last night and my husband just agreed with me – there was no “oh, it’s not that bad.” He just agreed that “yes, you need to go grocery shopping”. I have food (like beef in the freezer) but some of our favorites are missing – like eggs, rice, cheese, peanut butter – I’ve been so busy cleaning a house I haven’t had time for it. On the bright side, the rental is now clean, the lawn mowed, and I just need to run over and stick the “for rent” sign in the yard.

I’m without a car today, which is kind of a blessing in disguise, I’m forced to stay home and do things like write blog posts, finish my laundry (which I am somehow almost done with…), and a few other small things that I need to get done around the house.

Baby boy just woke up so I need to go feed him, and then work on laundry…what happened to my summer plans of hanging out at the pool and water park all summer?!

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Mixing the PlayDough

So, there’s this thing called helicopter parenting, you know, where the parent “hovers” over the child all, the, time… I’m not a helicopter parent, at least, I don’t think I am. I was at the chick-fil-a playground the other day and this parent could not let her child play for more than 5 seconds without having to comment, correct, or otherwise check on her child. This child was probably 3 or 4 so it’s not like playing on a slide was above her capabilities and she actually needed help. Nope, this parent was just afraid something might go wrong, maybe her child would get upset. Either way, it was making ME nervous just watching them. It’s a kid’s play area, the kids are supposed to run around and have fun.

There’s so many things I’ve had to learn to let go of as a parent of young children. I’m constantly asking myself, Do I need to interfere? Do I need to help? Do they need direction? Alot of times that answer is yes, but, many times, It’s no. Is it important? Does it matter?

Really, does it matter that my 3yr old prefers to crunch her suckers instead of suck on them. Irritating, yes. Does it matter, no.

For example, the first thing that almost drove me crazy as a young mom was my daughter mixing the play dough colors. You know, play dough has these nice plastic containers, with colored dough in them, and the lid to the container matches the dough. So, when you’re done playing it’s all supposed to go back where it came from. Right? Nope, not at all. These kids make “pies”, “pancakes” and little people. And they have these toys that you push the play dough through to make shapes, and horse hair, and such. And of course, things can’t be one color, they have to be a rainbow – which eventually turns brown because if you mix enough, it will be brown.

I found myself managing her play, don’t mix these! Don’t let these touch! Don’t smash those together, I’ll never get them apart! And then I realized, what am I doing? Is this necessary? How does it matter that the play dough is mixed? It’s for playing with, it has no purpose but to be smushed, mashed, squished, shaped, and unfortunately, mixed.

The kids help me in the kitchen. I do instruct and heavily supervise (it’s the kitchen, a lot of things can go wrong). I do request that they try to keep things in the bowl, off the floor (and off the ceiling), and I don’t let them do something beyond their abilities that could harm them. (as in no sharp knives and I’m the only person putting things in and out of the oven). My 5yr old can operate the electric mixer, cut anything that is soft enough for a butter knife, and she understands when things are hot and she should let me handle it. The 3yr old can mix with a spoon and mostly keep everything in the bowl. And the 1yr old knows how to lick the beaters and bowls :).  Here’s the key, I let them try anything that can’t harm them. We’ve had lots of messes, and plenty of mistakes. I show them how to do it right, but if you just can’t quite stir without making a mess, it’s ok, practice makes perfect. And we all have fun trying! And somehow, this was easier than the play dough…

I want my kids to know how to solve problems on their own – if the kids are fighting over a toy and come to me, I offer to take the toy and store it in a safe place for them. In 3 years, I’ve only had to actually take the toy twice. Once they realize that they both loose this way, they figure it out. My mother-in-law was shocked the other day. She was babysitting while my husband and I went out to dinner. She had found a fairy dress and wings at a yard sale the weekend before and she was worried about how the girls would react to there being only one dress. But, she pulled it out and prepared for the worst. To her surprise, there was no fighting. They decided that one should get the dress and one the wings. The 3yr old needed help putting the wings on but, that was all the help they needed. They traded items an hr or two later and each of them got to play with each item.

I’m not saying that I don’t teach manners. We sit at the table till everyone is done eating, we’re polite to each other, the kids say “yes sir,” and “yes ma’am”, and they’re required to obey. We take them to meetings and they have to sit quietly. So, I do require a lot of my kids. But on the flip side, I try to leave lots of room for them to explore.

We mix the play dough (actually, I don’t mix the playdough – they do), we make big messes in the kitchen, and cupcakes with LOTS of sprinkles, we color, paint, and explore. My rule for outside on the swingset, if they can figure out how to do it, they can give it a try (I know one of these days someone will have a broken bone but as long as they learn their limits as they go, hopefully it will be a while before this happens). No one has figured out the monkey bars yet, so no one uses them, they try, they’re getting close, but not quite there. And I don’t help, when they’re big enough to do it, they’ll figure it out.

In my opinion, if I’m always helping and fixing, they’ll never learn how to do things on their own.