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Today Hattie reminded us that a child can move more in leaps and bounds than predictable step-by-step progress.
Our second daughter has not shown all the physical daring of her older sister. Hattie has been more hesitant about running, climbing, swimming...you name it. But slowly and surely, that courage - that desire to keep up with her sister and friends - is beginning to take hold.
She started the day whining about not wanting to ride her bike to the Douglas Elementary park, a half-mile jaunt. We pushed her, literally and figuratively, and soon enough she was pedaling away. She made the whole trip there and back.
At Douglas, feeling that courage swell, she took to an 8-foot rock wall, and climbed it three times.
We joined some friends at the pool that afternoon. Hattie has been reticent to go under water through the summer swim season. She was a little brave during a beach visit this week, dunking her head a few times in the splash pool to her cousins' delight. But today she went full force. Hattie started with some basic head dunks, but within minutes it has progressed to full-on underwater swimming, as captured in this video:
Then, before we left, she made the bold statement: "I want to jump off the diving board." Clara showed her the way, and then Hattie did three jumps in a row. For the latter two, she hollered "cannonball!" before jumping into the deep end.
Courage begets courage. We'll do our best to encourage the progress, watching this bolder, more competitive side of Hattie emerge. No matter, today was a big lunge forward and a delight for her parents to witness.
