Never Give Up!

Two nights ago, we all piled into the RV and drove to a new park we found not far from our house. The park had one of those little rock climbing walls, and JP wanted Rae to try climbing it with his help. She resisted and whined about it, but he encouraged her to give it a shot. Once they got to the wall, Rae really decided she did NOT want to climb the wall and that it was too hard for her to do. JP explained to her that we should never give up, even when things are seeming too hard for us. She wasn't too happy about it, but he urged her along all the way up the wall, helping her with each grip and each step. Finally she made it to the top.

When Rae looked back down at what she had done, she got SO EXCITED and started laughing and cheering for herself! She was so thrilled that she immediately came down the slide and went right back to the climbing wall. But this time, she did it all by herself! You would have thought she had been climbing walls all of her life! She was up that wall in seconds, then back down the slide to do it again and again and again.

Standing at the top saying "I did it! I didn't give up!"

After that, Rae was so confident in herself that she started tackling all of the "big kid" things to do at the park, including learning how to climb up the slide and hang from the monkey bars (keep in mind, she's only 2). By the end of our time at the park, she was walking around saying stuff like, "I don't give up anymore! Never give up!" We were (and always are) so proud of her!