WHO WOULD HAVE EVER GUESSED?

A few posts ago I wrote about how, as parents, we occasionally end up doing things we could not imagine ourselves ever doing!

Well, I've done it again. Big time. Have really made quite a spectacle of myself, in front of Aidan and Lydia anyway.

Here are my handy boys, Sergei and Ilya, putting together our new trampoline.

Trampoline!!!???????????

(That's Aidan and Lydia yelling all the way from Virginia.)

They will tell you that when they were little, far from having a trampoline in their own yard, they were horribly disappointed and probably hideously embarrassed, and (I'm fairly sure) driven to deceit, by my dictum that they were NOT, under any circumstances, to jump on a trampoline!!! Ever.

I had some good, trauma-borne, reasons for this. When I was in fifth grade, we had a trampoline in our school and it was one of the "rotations" in PE class. So, one day, a boy named Doug was doing the obligatory, and not-very-dramatic "seat drop" when he landed funny. He became a paraplegic. That quick. So, you can see that there was some substantial reason for me to be alarmed at the idea of my dear ones jumping on this dangerous contraption. I later heard - and am pretty certain it is still true, that schools no longer have trampolines because they are too dangerous. (How I'd love to hear that this is not true; that it is only their cost, or something, that keeps them from being ubiquitous in schools.)

So what happened? Why do I now let my dear ones risk life and happiness on the trampoline?

I suppose it is just that enough time has passed, and I've seen enough people jump on trampolines, have noticed enough families with a trampoline in their back yard, and no ambulance in their driveway, that I have had my fears abated.

I hope I have not thrown caution to the wind in a way I'll live to regret. However, allowing for a little more "active fun" around the house is one way I've decided to fight the computer demon. Just hope that this does not become another thing I wish I'd never done!