My little monkey

There's a playground at the end of our cul-de-sac here. It's not much of one--the sort of thing one imagines in an inner-city neighborhood, and an absolute liability nightmare if such existed here--but the girls love it. Today we spent some time there with the girls' friend, who lives on the same street, and the friend's older brother.

They all amused themselves and each other pretty effortlessly, and one of their games was seeing who could hang by their hands the longest. The slide, being way higher than anything that would be permitted by law in the States, provided a horizontal (well, horizontal enough) bar high enough off the ground that anyone could play, and everyone did.

Hanging by one's hands looks pretty easy, especially when you watch children do it. And the neighbor kids have been doing this for a long time, so they're good at it and make it look that much easier. The older brother would let go with one hand to take a "rest," then rest the other hand. It looks effortless, but I am here to tell you, it gets real tiring real fast.

Nonetheless, Julia beat us all. She beat us all one by one and with no breaks in between. Then she beat a few of us again. And again. And was laughing while she did it.

I suppose it's partly because she's smaller than the rest of us, so she's not holding up as much weight. But she's also very athletic. She's the one I had to keep telling to sit down at the top of that slide, and to not stand up on top of the monkey bars. Granted, she gets "tired" when we walk more than two blocks at a time. But give her a playground and she'll go till you stop her.