The Park

Pictures of park visits are some of my favorites, in the sense that just looking at the pictures allows me to easily visualize how much our boys have grown up in the past couple years. When we first started taking Braedyn to the park, he spent most of his time on the swings, with us pushing him. I often wondered how he would possibly ever learn to do advanced things, such as going down the slide by himself...

... or climb that wobbly metal ladder to get up to the slide platform...

... and forget those monkey bar things, surely he'll never figure out how to climb those by himself...

And with the second child, you don't even have time to worry about when or if he'll ever figure out this-or-that. Because before you know it, they are slinging themselves down the slide, shouting "Wee!!"

All this, while you silently think to yourself, "how did he learn how to do that, I never taught him that"? And then one day, you upload some camera pictures, and get the answer...

It's one of the hidden treasures of having kids close in age. Braedyn became a teacher, and Chase was his little student, eager and willing to learn everything so that he could be just like his Big Brother.

It's funny, because parenting small kids can be very trying at times. They need you all the time, for anything and everything. And you never realize how nice it is to be needed, until they don't need you anymore for certain things. Tell me again, when exactly did my little ones turn into big boys?