Leaps and Bounds

So the Capt. is learning to hang off things. A playground near our house has monkey bars. Although he can't swing across them yet, he can reach up and hang off the first bar. He also likes to hang off the "laundry bar" in the back seat of the car when getting out. As the Lee family was suprised to find out a coupel of weeks ago, the Capt. can unbunkle himslef from his carseat. In the beginning this was bad. I had to pull over on the freeway a couple of times and talk about the policeman being very upset before the novelty wore off. Now it's actually helpful. I can get the Kid out of the car first and the Capt unbuckles, climbs over and hangs off the bar before getting out. And whetever you do. Do NOT help him. He can do it himself and he will tell you so. Anyway, most of the time the hanging off things does not affect anyone else, but the other day at the new Crossroads water park, the Capt was at the top of the play structure and he was hanging off the bar ro the slide. This was fine until a couple of other boys wanted to actually slide down. The Capt continued hanging. I was at the bottom yelling and sweating. He continued his hanging. The Capt hung off the bar and pushed the first kid. I was thinking, heck no! Then the other kid pushed back. It was all over. The Capt and the Other Boy were brawling!! I looked around and didn't see any other mom to witness this so I marched up the play structure with the Kid in tow to break up the Capt's first playground brawl. I hope this is the last one for awhile. There was actually some good that came out of all of this. In normal manly fashion by the time the boys were finally down the slide they were already buddies. The rest of the time they climbed all about helping each other up the ladders with the Capt using his best manners with a "thank you" everytime his buddy lent an arm up. When it was time to go they were waving all the way to the car and as the Capt was getting into his carseat he says, "that was my friend." Yup. He's a boy.