Spring has sprung

There are a lot of things I think I think. Like I think I think raising girls is easier than raising boys. I don’t know this mind you, like I can’t scientifically prove it. But Brant’s a little more stubborn than his sister was at this age and it’s not getting any better as we approach the Terrible 2s and he becomes for fearless (more on that later).

But I think – fingers crossed – that spring sprung (or is it sprang or sprought) over the weekend. We got our first spring walk, er push/ride for some, and spent the better part of an hour at the playground. Swings, slides and static cling, all wrapped up in one nice little muddy trip down the street.

I love winter, to an extent. But in terms of seasonal ranking, it’s a distant third behind fall (No. 1) and spring (no. 2). And for all I care, we can go right from spring to fall and skip over the two months worth of 90 degree days.

Anyway, this was the first time the two kids got to play together at the playground. Last year Brant was too small and this year he is probably a bit small, but he can hold his own. All he wants to be in the entire world is his big sister. He wants to play with her, follow her, do the things she is doing.

So when Maren wants to go down the biggest slide, Brant wants to go down the biggest slide. When Maren climbs the rock wall, Brant climbs the rock wall.

At this point in her life, the caution that Maren had when she was 2 has returned. She went from holding a parent’s finger no matter where she went, to jumping off the steps, to now looking for potential problems around every corner. Brant has never really had any of that. While he’s a little jumpy about the shadows in his room at night, he likes to stand on the couch or on a kitchen chair more than we would care at this time.

Nobody likes being boring

Then came Saturday’s trip to the playground. The first couple of times down the slide, the siblings held hands. Perfectly posed for Mrs. Bowman to take pics with her camera. But you could see after the first few trips Brant was getting more and more comfortable, until …

Maren sat down and waited for Brant to crawl over, grab his hand and gently slide down together. Brant, obviously had had enough. While Maren waited with her eyes closed, Brant laid on his belly and took off head first down the slide. I was waiting to take a pic but managed to catch him just before he face-planted off the end. It scared him though, so maybe he does have a little bit of fear him in.

We will see, though. This was just our first trip out this spring. Who knows what he’s going to be doing on the 10th trip.