Me: "Boys, where are you?"
Henry: "We're up here!"
Me: "What do you mean, we?"
Boys: maniacal laughter
When we moved into this house the first thing the big boys did was to scale the two story high magnolia tree in the backyard. Now, I like the idea of tree climbing in theory, but I do not like actually seeing my children that high up in the air with only their monkey skills and wits to keep them safe. Monkey skills they have, wits.....well we're still working on those. My solution is generally to try not to think about what they're doing and avoid watching it altogether whenever possible.
Toddlers though, toddlers should not be up a tree unsupervised.
And these pictures really do not do justice to how high John John was. I didn't want to back away to get a full shot for obvious reasons. Although the fact that I pulled out my camera to document the moment while simultaneously chastising him might have sent mixed messages. He must have been at least ten feet up because he was completely out of my reach and I still cannot figure out how he hoisted himself up into the bottom branches to begin with. He insisted on climbing down "by mysef mommy! BY MY SEF!" but he hasn't quite grasped the fact that while climbing up a tree is relatively easy, getting down is the tricky part. Maybe if he had, he wouldn't have ventured up quite so high. Once he was dangling from a lower branch trying rather unsuccessfully to find a foot hold he begrudgingly allowed me to offer him a hand.
As usual, I'm one part proud and three parts terrified.