what goes up...

No photos for this event as cameras aren't allowed at the gym (thank heaven.) I suppose a picture couldn't capture the essence anyhow.

Miss Ava had been asking to climb the rock wall at the gym over the past several weeks. The problem was that she hadn't been wearing sneakers to the gym, so we made a point of putting her in sneakers last Saturday so she could climb. She tried it when she was two and we just never got around to it again. So her turn came and the girl at the gym strapped her into the harness and off she went. Up, up, up. And back down. Up again a little higher. Uh oh. She was stuck in one spot for a bit and then she climbed up some more. She was up over 20 feet (the top is about 30 feet) trying to go higher, but the wall jutted out a bit and she couldn't figure out how to navigate the change. I told her she didn't have to go up anymore, that she could come down. As she reached down with her foot, leg s t r e a c h i n g, toes desperately searching for a lower resting place, it must have occurred to her that she was pretty far off the ground and might be forever. And. She. Screamed. In an octave only the very young and very terrified can manage. It echoed through the club and through my bones. Dogs all across Rocklin started howling for no apparent reason. It seems my darling didn't know what that thing strapped around her lower torso was for. The gym girl came over to our side of the wall and helped talk her down. She screamed again at one point, but it was less unnerving that time, more of an aftershock. Around seven feet above ground the gym girl was able to reach her bottom and show Ava that she could let go of the wall and float down because the cable and the harness wouldn't let her fall.

Oh, so that's what that's for.

Sunday afternoon Ava asked to climb the wall again, "...and I wont scream either, mom."

She didn't.

I think we have a little adventurer on our hands.