If she can go down the slide, she can do anything

In the past couple days Miriam has started embracing slides. For months she's been climbing up the stairs, playing around on the platform, and sitting at the top of the slide, but she's usually then stood back up and come down the stairs. Occasionally, she'd reach out for a hand and slide down with support, and even more occasionally turn on to her belly and slide down lying down feet first.

Now she climbs, walks, sits, slides, and gets up to go do it again and again. I irrationally worried for those months of being afraid of the slide that she would always be afraid of it, and by extension be afraid of most of the world and end up creating for herself a safe sheltered too small life. Now I am irrationally exultant for her in her lack of fear of that momentary loss of physical control and pleasure of sliding, and by extension proud that she's off to conquer the world. If she can go down the slide, she can do anything. At least, if she can overcome her fear of the slide, she shows that in general she can have fears and grow out of them. I feel like a stage of childhood, or perhaps of parenthood, has ended and a new one begun.

Yesterday's menu:
breakfast: frosted mini-wheats
lunch: peanut butter and jelly
dinner: potato leek soup with kielbasa