All week long my daughter has been nagging me to take her to the park, and all week long I’ve been saying no. Not because I’m mean or don’t want her outside having fun, but because I just didn’t want to go. We have a pretty nice swingset, plenty of outdoor activities for her, and most importantly, a large pool. This summer is moving along at an alarming rate. The playground will still be accessible a few months from now. The pool will not.
Yesterday I finally gave in. The sky was overcast, I didn’t have anything pressing to accomplish, and I knew it would make her happy. Plus, I was tired of her asking. I assumed that it was the company of other children that she was looking for, something that seemed reasonable.
That wasn’t the case at all. There were several other kids her age and she ignored them all, strange for my daughter, who is extremely outgoing and social. It wasn’t a day for running and playing. It was a day for training. Alaina was on a mission to “practice her climbing.”
She can occasionally be whiny, like all four year olds, but for the most part Alaina is pretty even-tempered. The only things that can always be counted on to get her blood boiling are being told she is “too little” to do something, or even worse, if she tries something and fails.
Apparently the last time Alaina was at the playground with my wife, she got stuck atop a corkscrew pole that several older girls had talked her into climbing. I heard this story after remarking on how weird it seemed that all she wanted to do while there was to go up and down the pole, over and over, until she was comfortable doing it by herself. When that was accomplished we moved on to other climbable obstacles.
My daughter was determined. That BS wasn’t going to be happening again. She was going to practice her climbing.
I absolutely love this about her. In her four years there has never been a challenge that she has backed down from, and I hope this quality continues. Too much pride isn’t healthy, and there is a competitive edge to her that we might need to monitor, but for now we will be at the park, “practicing her climbing”. Because failure is not an option.
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Originally published on ThirstyDaddy.com. Republished with permission.
Photo courtesy of author. All rights reserved.
