Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better

This afternoon I took baby and dog to the playground. It's a great compromise because Ollie MUST, MUST, MUST get out of the house. He's eyeing me as soon as we wake up in the morning. "When are we going for a walk? Now? Is it time for a walk?" argh.

I like to take them in the late afternoon because there is a 1% chance of us coming across wildlife, which means it's safe to let him walk off leash (because he'll actually listen to the commands). The path we take leads to a big field with a playground. Now Ollie can run around, mark his territory and lounge beneath the tree, and Claire could be free from the stroller. Most of the time Ollie isn't too fond of this part of the walk because it means he has to wait and wait and, oh yes, wait while Claire has fun. It's bad enough we brought her into this world, now we actually allow her to enjoy herself around him?!? The nerve.

Well, if Claire gets to play on the playground, then Ollie feels that he should get to play there too. Of course, Claire doesn't mind. In fact, she LOVES Ollie. So much so, there are times where she tries to imitate him. I'm so proud! Normally, this isn't a big deal, except when Ollie performs a feat that ignites the dare-devil inside of Claire. She has daddy's trait when it comes to no fear, which puts the fear in me, which means I'll probably keel from a heart-attack in the near future.

Here we are, Claire sitting in a tunnel that is connected to a platform that leads to the top of 2 kiddie slides. When we first climbed up to the tunnel, Ollie had scurried past Claire and was "stuck" on the top platform. Claire and I were playing peek-a-boo through the windows placed on either side of the tunnel. A couple of minutes into the game Ollie started to cry because he wanted to get down and couldn't get past Claire in the tunnel to go down the easy way. I know that Ollie can go down these slides, but when he's around Claire he regresses into a puppy and prefers to cry for attention. Having none of it, I told him to man-up and go down the slide. Not a good idea. In the very next instant I see a spark in Claire's eyes as she dashes out of the tunnel to the high platform. I quickly run around to stand between the 2 slides and try to determine where she plans on going. She chose her slide and launched herself off of the platform. Launch, not as in "I'm going to slide down really fast," but as in "I'm going to jump down like Ollie did because that looks like way more fun." Using my cat-like reflexes, I jumped half-way up her chosen slide and caught her mid-air. That's right. I'm a ninja.

As I try to get my heart rate under control, to avoid any sudden strokes, Claire is smiling like she just performed the coolest trick ever. And if that is her coolest trick at 14 months, I am going to have to brace myself for what lies ahead. We have a mini Evel Knievel on our hands.