Conquering the zip wire – Living Arrows

We had so many adventures over the Easter holidays and my son had a few surprises in store for me along the way.  He’s never been much of a risk taker and as much as he loves being outside he’s never even really tried to climb a tree, even the slide at the park was something he’d avoid for a very long time.  But a few weeks ago he took me totally by surprise and decided it was time to spend time conquering the zip wire at our local park.

This may seem like such a normal thing to you, but for him, this was a big deal.  For years we’ve tried to encourage him to try out zip wires at various places we’ve been.  he’s always refused out of hand.  When the zip wire was added to our local park I thought that would tempt him, but no, I was wrong.  Even his school friends couldn’t persuade him to try it out.  He would just stand happily and watch them having all the fun.

We’d been challenged to spend a day out together without spending any money on my son and as part of that day.  As part of that challenge we’d headed to our local park and before I knew what was happening my son was away.  Mummy I want to go on the zip wire.  Really?  Ok. Go for it, and he did.  Over and over again.  The look on his face when he realised that conquering the zip wire was fun was priceless.  He had the park to himself so he spent ages going back and forth, making up for lost time.

It was so lovely to watch him taking another leap forward with his confidence.  It was even lovelier to see that this wasn’t a flash in the pan when we went to Waddesdon Manor with friends and he got straight on the zip wire there too.

I wonder what’s next to conquer?