seeds of passion

Taken with my incredibly crappy cell phone camera.

Last Friday, I took the kids to the mall to play. I intentionally left my camera at home because sometimes I just want to be in the moment with my kids and not worry about capturing it through my lens. It is inevitably at these times where I kick myself that I didn't bring said camera and have to use my cellphone to capture the goings on.

Let me explain. Vivienne is a pretty happy gal. She has however turned into somewhat of a She-Beast in the past week, meaning the whining, crying, SCREAMING, and general unhappiness has increased to a point where I am praying there's a tooth in there somewhere to explain the behavior and hope we can go back to normal after it is out. She's definitely giving me a run for my money and I even got frustrated with her for the first time this past weekend. There is only so much of that noise I can tolerate. 

Anyway, after we finished lunch up, I lifted Avery over the wall and set him off on a playing adventure. He had brought a cement truck and was quite popular with the other kids. I got Lou cleaned up and thought that she might like the slide. Well, what occurred next was witnessing the birth of a little life's passion. It was like that girl was BORN TO SLIDE. After each time down, she would literally try and launch herself out of my arms back to the slide. There is a long platform leading to the slide and I put her on it on her tummy while I tried to get my phone camera ready to capture her smile, all the while holding on to her so she wouldn't get hurt. I think some other moms were laughing at me.

Well, being on her tummy a mere 3 feet away from her new-found passion was the motivation she needed to move. Using her arms she scootched herself backwards until she reached the edge of the slide and down she went. I think I saw an actual light bulb go off above her head as she realized that, "hey, I can move myself to get what I want!"

I must of helped her down over 30 times and each time she smiled with pure delight. It was such a moment and I love that I was there to witness and share it with her. This was not a fluke either. We went to the park on Sunday and again, the She-Beast was tamed with an hour of slide time. This time, Avery was kind enough to catch.