1 post tagged “balance beam”
Dropped my daughter off Saturday at a party for a friend turning six. At a gymnastic place...you know, where they run and swing and balance and cake all in one place with lots of fresh-faced teens over-looking the thing, and lots of parents. I took my son to get Mad Libs and a burger at Pie & Burger during the festivities. At my daughter's bedtime that night I asked her to tell me more about the party:
"Well, I was on that thing that's really skinny that you have to balance on..."
"The balance beam."
"Right. And you have to flip off. Do a flip and jump off and I did it like 13, no 100...or, like a million times? And I got really good. I was at level one and I moved up to level four..."
The influence of her brother's video games...
"So I was at level four, I mean, level two. And I flipped. In the air. And landed. And on the thing where you swing I swinged around and flipped in the air and I was really good even though I only had practiced an hour. And I don't even need lessons."
Later my son asked me if I believed A about having flipped in the air.
I said that I believed that she believed that she did it.
"No, come on, Mom. Really. Just tell me that you don't believe it."
"I believe that she believes it. Just like I believe that she believes in Santa. It's not really important that either of us tell her right now that we don't believe her. You know what I mean?"
He thinks about this. "But she didn't flip, Mom. Just tell me that you know that. Just say it."
I laugh. He laughs, but can't let it go. "Say it!" He giggles.
I think only how charmed I am that my six year old still believes in her own tall tales, still has conversations on the swing with imaginary people (when she thinks no one is in earshot), whispers secrets in the dog's ear and believes him to understand. Now's the time to do it, rather than be thirty and fictionalizing your own story, but that is another conversation entirely.
"Okay. She didn't flip in reality. Alright?"
My son is satisfied. --K
