Groeber Babies: Swinging and Sliding

Two of our favorite activities around here lately! Here are some great shots of both swinging and sliding in many forms from our week with the Groebers:

Up until a few weeks ago Jamesie was very nervous and uncomfortable in a swing. Now he is totally relaxed and I can't get enough of his smushy little face!

With GG and DaDa. I would like to point out that the swing Seannie is in (in which is is perpendicular to the ground!) does NOT have any sort of strap in it. Seriously. Who thought of this?

At a playground near the mountain house Sean went wild with slides for about 45 minutes one night after dinner. He and I made the most welcomed discovery that he can climb the stairs and come down even the highest and twistiest slide all by himself now, which he did about 30 times in a row before helping Jamesie down his very first slide ride!

Mommy with the boys on the slide! Yea! A point of interest to other moms and dads: we have one friend who's 2 yo daughter sprained her ankle and another friend who's 2 yo son broke his leg, both by going down a slide on an adult's lap-- there is a danger of the little feet getting stuck on the slide, and the momentum of the bodies going forward is very unforgiving. So, I have heard NOT to ride with the kiddos on the slide. I, however, did take J down, and was very careful to lift his feet up, literally in the air, so that his back was against me as we slid down.

Sean had his very own swing installed at the Mountain House last year for his 2nd birthday. He was SO excited to reunite with it this year. So much so that more than 50% of his waking time was spent on the swing, and the adults just took turns standing and pushing....luckily it is set up on the gorgeous porch where we mostly congregated, so the designated pusher didn't have to miss much adult conversation. Here is a great series which illustrates Sean's stamina for swinging that clearly outpaced the adults' attention span for pushing:

More sliding: there is a great place in the mountains called Sliding Rock that I've been hearing about from Cody for years, but we hadn't made it there until now. It is a gorgeous waterfall that empties into a shallow little brook that was just the right depth for sean to walk around in by himself (with lifejacket).

The rock under the waterfall is so smooth that you can actually slide down it like a waterslide without anything but your rear! Its very slippery business getting up there, but Cody and Sean hiked all the way up like champs!

Next is scooting over into the water....very slippery--I don't know how Cody did this with Sean.

Oh that's cold.

They did it! Sean's usual M.O. for adventures like this is to be too scared to try it, then once he does (like most of us), he realizes how fun it is and does it over and over. For some reason, the exact opposite thing happened at Sliding Rock---he immediately wanted to try it, laughed his way down, loved it, and then didn't want to do it at any more. I guess he figured he proved himself--no need for further showing off. There was also a group of three 15-yo boys there that took about an hour to build up the courage to go down the fall-- I couldn't resist telling them that they had just missed Sean doing it. One kid said, "What? He's like 3!" I said, "actually, he's 2. You can do it if a 2 year old did it."

Here are Beth and me getting ready to go down-- mostly just getting used to the cold mountain water, and discussing who would go first. I volunteered her.

I don't know if you can see my face in this one, but it represents pure terror. Probably the same face I made the day Cody pretended to propose to me in the law school computer lab after 12 hours of studying. Terror.

In these situations I'm usually not scared of the actual feat, but have a huge fear of anaphylacting in the cold water at the end of the feat. Cody had to stand next to the pool and promise he would pull me out if I anaphylacted. I didn't. It was really fun.

And then I got this prize at the end. Pure sweet.

GG, Dada, young Groebers (us), Micah and Bef. (One of the 15 to boys is standing at the top of the fall in the background, contemplating his options. he would do this and then walk down about 10 times before actually riding it.)

And, so that one day when our kids look back on these pictures, they'll know that there parents were cool at some point, Cody and I got in another little swing while the kids were napping one afternoon: