Stella has always been a very cautious child. She is a social butterfly and very outgoing, but she has also always been very purposeful & thoughtful about her physical actions. This means that we have never really been helicopter parents with her at all because we knew that she was pretty darn good about knowing her physical limits. For example, were comfortable never gating the bottom of the stairs because we simply taught her how to go down them once she started going up them, and we never worried about her climbing on things because once she was finally interested in climbed anything, she was old enough to figure out how to get back down safely as well.
Lately though, that has most definitely changed! I don’t know if it’s just because she’s approaching the age of 3 (just 7 weeks from now!), because she’s more confident in her physical abilities or what, but lately she just GOES. It’s honestly pretty fun to see her really blossoming on the playground! Yesterday I packed up the kids to go to the town 10 minutes over to hit up the hot springs, and when we got there the hot springs were closed for fall cleaning (BOO). Stella was mightily disappointed, but luckily the sadness was eased with 30 minutes of playing on the adjacent playground in swimsuits until I forced her to get back in the car because her teeth were chattering from the cold!
