The Dare Devil

She just looks innocent..

I am pretty sure my almost 2 year old niece is out to give her Auntie Shannon a heart attack. I watched her last week and took her to the park. Within the first 5 minutes of being there she fell. Hard. I was on the other side of the playground and saw it happen. I did what any/most parents/babysitter would do.. I held my breath and waited for the cry. It didn't happen. She stood up and kept on running. To my horror her knees were black. When I took a closer look I saw they were bleeding. I did my best to not draw her attention to her now bloody knees. It had to hurt. Do you remember road rashes and skinned knees from when you were a kid? I do! Those suckers would sting forever!!! A couple minutes later she fell on her knees, again. Once again there were no tears.. from her. I looked at her doubley bloody knees and the tears welled up in my eyes and a lump formed in my throat. My poor baby niece was bleeding under my watch. I felt like the worst auntie in the world. Good aunties would wrap their nieces and nephews in bubble wrap and never let anything happen to them. Right? While I was trying not to weep uncontrollably, she sat on the edge of the slide, pointed to her knee and laughed. Stinker!

As if those two spills weren't enough, she attempted to forge through the bushes and ate dirt for a third time. No extra ouchies this time though. She just got up and moved on. A few minutes later she was extra brave and tried to jump off of this:

Thankfully Auntie became her shadow after the first spill and I was there to catch her. As if my heart wasn't pounding enough with all of the thrills and spills, a pack of coyotes on the hill began howling/calling.. whatever they do. Much to my dismay, another large pack answered their cries and had their rumps parked a few hundred yards from the playground. I scooped up my niece aka potential coyote food and headed back to Brian and Katie's. I wasn't taking any chances with this little dare devil. With my luck she wouldv'e chased after them saying "puppy"..