Intrigued

My four year old daughter now has shoes with laces! I am not okay with this! She is my baby girl, she can't be learning to tie shoes! Anyway, that's a complete side note. We were at the park the first time she had them when she ran by me and I noticed that they were both untied. I didn't figure that they would stay tied permanently. So I flag her down, sit her down and tie her shoes. She then takes off to play on the play set. Not more than five minutes later, she runs by me again, shoe laces bouncing around her feet like snakes trying to bite her legs. I get her to stop again and I tie them up. She tells me "Thank you" in her sweet little voice which always makes it all okay and she runs away once again. She then slides down the slide and I see her shoe strings dangling lifelessly from her shoes as she sits on the edge. Seriously! Am I just that bad at tying shoes? Will they never stay tied? I tie them up, she takes off and up the climbing wall. As she approached the top she turned around pulls her knees to her chest and starts tugging at her shoe laces! She has been messing with them this whole time! She would grab the ends with curiosity transferring between the end an the loop trying to process what is going on with them. She wasn't pulling at them because they bothered her but because she was interested, curious and intrigued! In the process they would come untied and she would begin her attempts at putting it all back together which were unsuccessful because she is four and her hand-eye coordination is not quite developed yet. The mystery of the untied shoe strings is solved ... Except... What about my twelve year old daughter? Her shoe strings are always untied too ... To be continued...

We went to the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo a few weeks ago and my kids really enjoyed it! The problem with the Zoo is that many of the animals have too many places to hide. They are lazy and try to get away from us spectators. How rude! Don't they know that I paid good money to see them! They should be alert and alive and performing for us, right? I know, the Zoo really is for the animals, bringing awareness to their kind and concern for their habitats while trying to give them the most natural living arrangements possible. Which means places to hide as well. However, there was one creature that broke the trend. We were walking along a wooden walkway through the "African Safari" area of the Zoo. As we approached a deck where there were like ten kids huddled around a section of the rails. There was lots of excitement and energy. Laughing and sometimes fear! The kids were playing with an ostrich! The Zoo keeper was there that was in charge of this area stated that the ostrich is very curious and interested. It was happy and having fun, as were the kids. Both the kids and the ostrich were interested, curious and intrigued! 

My twelve year old daughter has a Rip Stick. It is kind of like a skateboard but it only has two wheels like those on in-line skates (roller blades), one under the front foot and another under the back foot, each able to rotate. It also has a swivel bar between both sections allowing the propelling of it by twisting your hips and repeatedly flexing your ankles alternating left and right. My daughter is pretty good at it. She was curious and interested in doing more than just riding it, so we looked up on YouTube how to do some simple tricks. We learned how to do a manual (wheelie) where you prop up the nose just riding on the back wheel. Once she is comfortable with the instructions she decides to try it for herself. She gets herself going, leans back then stumbles and steps off. She gets back on it to try again only to arrive at the same result. She attempted this multiple times without success. I asked her what she thought was wrong and she said that it was because she is scared. Her fear was holding her back from accomplishing this trick. 

Fear is a good thing. It is our brain's way of telling us something is dangerous and that we may get hurt! If there was no fear then our ancestors would have died off a long time ago. The problem that we have is that we missuse fear. We so often think if fear as something that happens to us instead of something that we can use. This is why we can lock up and shut down! This missuse of fear keeps us from trying new things, making great accomplishments and having a lot of fun!

While we were at the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo, the kids were excited to get on the Sky Safari! It was like a ski lift, a bench hanging from a cable that lifts you up above the trees in order to see a large portion of the zoo from above. I have a fear of heights! This is a good thing, because he keeps me from putting myself in positions where I could fall plummeting to my death. My biggest fear was not necessarily me falling off of these sky high benches but one of my kids falling and there being nothing I could do to save them. The problem in this instance is that it was hindering me from having fun with my kids! This ride is safe! It's been there for years and they use these all over the world! I am not going to say that I had nothing to fear, but I didn't need to let it hinder me and take control of me! I just needed to take control of it and you know what, I and my kids had a blast! It was a lot of fun and no one got hurt.

Courage is not the absence of fear it is the use of fear in your favor.

Take control of your fear. Be intrigued, try new things, use fear to your advantage and change the world!