We had a playdate at the park yesterday afternoon. The mom I went with has three little girls. One is Josiah's age, one is four, and the other is six.  Josiah was enjoying being up high on the structure with the older girls, when one of them asked if she could take him down the big twirly slide. I agreed, since he is usually pretty daring; however, I regretted it when she started to go down with him on her knee, and I heard him yelling, "no,no,no,no...". 

Thankfully, he quickly changed his mind by the time he got to the bottom. I don't think he has ever been more proud of himself. He strutted like a peacock for a full ten minutes at least. His chest was stuck out, and he kept stopping to clap for himself. The girls invited him to try again, but he was too busy pacing the entire length of the playground.

When he was finally ready to go again, he climbed back up to the top of the structure, with the 6-year-old close behind him. All of a sudden, I heard her say, "He's going without me..."  This is when we all turned to see Josiah flying down the twirly slide all by himself! I caught him by the hood just before he landed, and you should have seen the victory dance that time around. It was shameless, at least for him! "Where do boys learn this strut?" I found myself wondering, until I saw Chris again...