Dad’s forgotten skills
29 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
Sometime in the night, I remembered I knew how to hand-tie a climbing harness. I also remembered that I had the appropriate webbing in a bin in the garage, that we had an incredibly long rope still in the tree from the tire swing, and that today was going to be another fantastic sunny day — the last one before more snow tomorrow.
So, of course, Molly thinks I’m the coolest dad ever. And I think she’s the coolest kid. 
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After some great swingin’, it seemed like a good idea to go for a tricycle ride. We decided to go all the way to the goose park, because heck, the weather was nice.
Molly visited the statue of the little kids, this time showing them a little love…
…And she demonstrated that these days, little things like balance beams a mere foot off the ground aren’t even remotely frightening. I barely got a picture off.
And we did some more swingin’… this time with a little musical element.
We’ll be ready for the weather tomorrow, but let no one say we didn’t take advantage of today’s! 
“I want to do this again!”
28 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
Sometimes Molly does something she likes so much she demands to do it again before the first go-around is even really over.
This weekend, we drove up north to an indoor zipline park mom found, to see whether Molly would find it fun.
Well.
First off, there were a bunch of rope-style bridges, with platforms and slides to try out. That was fun.
Then she spotted the kids on ziplines. “I want to do this!!”
So an attendant got her into a harness, showed her a brief safety video (she even sort of paid attention), and off she went.
Huge fun.
Pictures were tricky — moving Molly, poor light — so the videos will tell the story better. First off Molly tried out the low-level zipline. The woman was great, helping her get into her harness up top — and another attendant on the ground (also named Molly, amusingly) would help her out down there. We had the place almost to ourselves on a Sunday morning, so Molly got all the attention in the world.
Big Molly would grab Little Molly and give her extra swings. “I want to do this again!!”
Molly finally got a zipline buddy, another girl a little older. And she found her Tarzan voice:
After a bit she wanted to try the high zipline. She had a couple of hesitant leaps from way up there — “I was afraid, a little bit,” she said later — but she kept climbing back up to do the high one again, and finally was hopping off with no trouble. You can hear in the background of this one another girl’s grandmother, who couldn’t believe Molly wasn’t even three yet.
Speaking of being almost three, Molly has figured out how to tuck her pinky finger under her thumb and show you how old she’s going to be on “My birthday, May 25th. I’m going to be three!!” She loves being able to do numbers with her fingers.
Last night right out of her “showah,” Chef Molly wanted to make cupcakes. So dad whipped out a small portion of pound cake batter, and mom got it into little cups, baked and frosted. Molly was in charge of the sprinkles.
Like a lot of sweet treats, Molly was more into the idea of cupcakes than actually eating them — I think she finally had a bite or two, mostly of frosting. But the sprinkles? She ate every one of them she could pick up! And for some reason wanted to eat them in a chicken hat. At least her wet head was warm!
Bonus video: Molly and I hit the free day at the museum, where she enjoyed the kids’ “Discovery Zone” again. This time, in the dancing area, she decided she wanted to do “conducting.” A few kids even seemed to think they needed to pay attention to her, and appeared to be waiting for instructions. Command presence!
