Jade Knievel

Jade has been a busy girl as usual. It always seems to me she insists on doing things too early, rolling, sitting, crawling. Although, walking was about right. Maybe it’s me. Perhaps she is doing everything appropriate to her age but because she is so tiny it just doesn’t seem right. Her latest achievement has some background to it.

We try to get to the park as much as we can. At the park is a mom named Valentina who has a daughter about Jade’s age. She is from Russia and her mother is down visiting for six months. Valentina’s mother is a very sweet woman. Although we can’t communicate I can just tell she is a darling. She seems to understand some English but doesn’t speak English as far as I’ve heard.

When we are there she treats Jade just as she does her own grand-daughter, making sure she doesn’t fall, teaching her things. Jade was having trouble getting up this ladder. I believe in a previous post I mentioned she usually waits for her brother to help her up this ladder rather than do it herself. Anyway Valentina’s mother told Jade in Russian how to climb the ladder. She did okay and I thought that was that.


Fast forward a week later. I’m in the back yard cleaning the bouncer and putting it away. I’m completely worn out and lying down on the bouncer to get the air out feels like heaven to lay there. I forget for a second that Jade is running around in the yard. I look over to where I saw her last and see her there at the top of the ladder. I continue to lay there and then it hits me, AT THE TOP OF THE LADDER!


I run over there. By the time I get there she is already in the fort area heading for the slide. When she slides down she goes so fast she flies off completely and bumps her head at the bottom. Unfazed she gets up and heads for the ladder again. This goes on for a good thirty minutes. I finally just let her climb alone and just ran over when she was going to slide to slow her down a bit.


When she got bored she would throw her legs over the side of the slide for a bit more excitement. Imagine sliding down a banister. That is when I put my foot down and made her go inside. It’s funny when I tell her no she searches my eyes and seems to decide each time that I’m not really serious about it.


The other day we had friends over. Thank you Tami for coming over and Rusty and Christian. Jade fell off the ladder, well fell through the ladder, about four times. Poor thing was so upset and a little beat up. She kept trying though. Jade would get right back up and climb through her tears. Below is a little video of the first day she climbed the ladder.