Eileen --- Parks and the fearless baby

I am hardpressed to call Eileen a baby as anything more than a force of habit at this point. She tantrums. She uses words when she wants to (though lately we are grunting more and enunciating less). She runs, climbs, giggles.

As a woman living with her baby in the Netherlands, I have already told you that I have a bike seat for Eileen. We bike on a regular basis. Often to the park. This leads to the inevitable occasional tantrum while I am dutifully trying to put her into her bike seat and helmet to return home or run another errand.

But, this post is really about our visits to Uden's big park. As you recall, I live in the small town of Volkel -- a village, really. It has several playgrounds, but there is a giant series of playgrounds down Sportlaan in Uden. There are slides, a toddler area that is all in sand, a bunch of swings (though none of them baby swings), climbing equipment, even a fort on a tiny island with a wet moat that you must ford by rope bridge or single rope with a place for your hands. Not surprisingly, Eileen adores the place. Last week, we drove to the toddler area and met an Oma (grandma) and her granddaughter Millou. She said they went most days. So, we returned on Wednesday.

Too late, though, since school was out. So, Eileen, who like all toddlers is drawn to whatever the big kids are doing, faked me out, and ran for the 15 foot high ladder to the slide. ACK. So now she is ahead of me and on the third rung of the ladder with a bunch of school aged kids clambering up behind her. I had to push them out of the way to get to her, but that is fair considering how often she and I have been pushed aside by other school aged kids. We went down the slide together: whee!!!! Again, again. Twice more then we rode on to downtown in search of ice cream in a cupje (little cup) since it was still Passover. We failed and went home to our ice cream at home.

So, the question is, is there a switch in the head that will let her know when she is truly beyond her depth? If so, when does it switch on?

She has made the move to toddler swim class. And one of the little girls in the class runs fearlessly and flings herself into the water, even without her parent there. I know that Eileen would do the same if I didn't hold on ever so tightly to her wriggly little self.