The Littlest Dare Devil

Perhaps she trusts us so much that she has no fear of getting hurt when she is with us. Perhaps she is simply wired to be an adrenalin junky. I have scoured my adoption books on attachment and/or sensory disorders to see if excessive thrill-seeking is a symptom of something I need to be concerned about. I haven't found anything, so if there are any expects out there that care to comment, please do. But for now, I'm going with the theory that the girl just wants to have fun!

The thing is, Lexi is fearless around water... a far cry from the first month or so where she screamed at the thought of taking a bath. It was months before she would get into the bath tub without me holding her in my lap. Now she enjoys it so much she cries when it is time to get out.

She also climbs on everything and the height does not seem to bother her in the least. She can scale up any surface, even in a dress. It's as if she is half gecko with tiny little suction cups on her hands and feet. I wouldn't be surprised to find her crawling over the ceiling.

And she likes to go fast. Whether it is spinning in an office chair with her brother, rolling across the lawn in her wagon, or flying down the spiral slide on the playground, the faster she goes, the bigger she smiles and louder she squeals.

When you put those elements together, this is what you get:

It all started in Jamaica at the baby slide pool. Garrett wanted to send her down the slide on the first day. I said, "No, let's take it slow and give her time to get used to it." At that point, Lexi watched her brothers slide down ONE time and she was ready to go!




Notice how excited she gets when she splashes over Nolan. Yep, that's our girl:




Next, came the larger slide in the main pool. I honestly didn't think she would actually do it. When we were here before, I had to beg Liam to do this slide on the last day of our vacation (when he was three years old). At 20 months old, Lexi never even hesitated. We had to practically drag her away.




When I watched this video, I figured out how my camera lens got wet. I was so afraid she was going to hit Nolan, I forgot to cover it before splash down.

To top it off, Lexi also went down the 150 foot water slide too, laughing the entire way. However, my wonderful husband was manning the video camera that day and got a little too much (i.e. any) footage of yours truly. That video will not be appearing on the blog.

The first day home from Jamaica, Lexi went straight to the spa, walked around to the spill over, and slid right into the pool.




She will also jump in from anywhere. We have to keep a very close eye on her at ALL times. The spa is like her very own baby pool.




After seeing her brothers jumping off the diving board, she had to give that a try too. Once she was about to jump off the board to me and the boys started singing a VBS song. She started dancing while standing at the end of the board and nearly fell off. I am amazed at how she was able to keep her balance and still jumped right in.




I still laugh every time I play this next video. Lexi discovered ice cream in Jamaica. Oh, she had tasted it before, but we had never given her an entire cone or bowl. Well, this was an all-inclusive resort and we were on vacation after all. So the nannys brought her a big bowl of chocolate ice-cream. She was torn between wanting to slide and wanting to eat her frozen treat. She would walk toward the slide steps and then decide to come back to get another bite. She went back and forth about 6 times, but I didn't think to turn on the video camera until the end. If I had gotten it all, it would definitely have gone to America's Funniest Videos.