Playtime at the park

Our little baby has become quite the daredevil so it has therefore become quite difficult for me to take pictures of her playing. I need both hands--she scares me--so the camera usually stays in my pocket. It used to be that I could put her up on the platform at the top of the play structure and she would just sit there. Now when she gets up there she immediately heads for the slide, and fast! She would go down by herself, head first, if I would let her, but I know that she has very little control and would botch the landing so I have to stop her and help her go down a bit more slowly than gravity alone would let her.

You'll notice that we feature absolutely no pictures of Rachel on the slide today. That's because she's just too crazy near the slides. It would take two people to get a picture of her on the slide, at least right now. She's far too willing to just go down by herself. I don't think people typically send their 7 month old babies hurtling down slides, solo. We all have to conform to society occasionally, I suppose.

We started a fabulous pushing game in the swing today, the only place where Rachel is contained. I would put my hand out and she'd push off of it and laugh and laugh. And then she'd come swinging in again and push on my hand. She laughed so hard she got the hiccups. And then she sneezed. So we had to run home to get a tissue before we could play anymore.


I pushed her higher than she's ever been pushed before (Andrew has yet to take her to the park--I'm sure he'll push her higher) and she seemed to enjoy that, too. She's a thrill-seeking baby!




When the swing got old we went and played on the bridge. I put her on it and bounced up and down a little bit. She didn't think it was very fun until I held her hands and then she was able to relax and enjoy herself. She even crawled up and off the bridge all by herself, only slipping down to the middle a couple of times before succeeding.



From there we moved on to the little rainbow-shaped ladder thing. I don't know what it's called. Rachel was trying to reach for that second bar at first and then she just gave up and started sucking on things.



I put her up on a higher rung, just to see if she could hold herself up. And she could! She held herself up...for a few seconds, before she started sucking on things again.



She was extremely upset when I pried her little fingers off and took her away from the bar. I tried putting her in the swing to cheer her up but she just cried. I tried tossing her in the air a bit but she just cried. I took her home and she just cried. Finally she crawled under one of the kitchen chairs, pulled herself up to one of the bars and started sucking on it. Problem solved. I guess she just really enjoyed sucking on that metal bar.