American Ninja Warrior

Dear Laney,

When Karen was visiting a few weeks ago, she showed you the YouTube clip of tiny, 5 ft-tall contestant Kacy Catanzaro completing the semi-final round of competition on the reality show American Ninja Warrior. You LOVED it.

You were already begging us to walk you to the park after dinner every night so you could practice on the monkey bars and the rings, but this new ninja angle really amped up your competitive spirit. We made up an obstacle course through the playground: The monkey bars! To the bridge! Up the rope! Over the rings! Down the stairs! Current time to beat: 56 seconds.

You spent your whole recess period performing feats of strength, until - even though I sent you to school with a box of Band-Aids - your hands looked like this.

I did a little online shopping, and you're now the only first grader I know who packs a pair of junior bodybuilding gloves in her bag for school to wear at recess.




We went paddle boarding last weekend, and discovered that you're more than strong enough to paddle your own board around. So we let you. In fact, we gave you and your friend Jude each a half of a 2-bladed kayak paddle and told you two 6 yr olds to go exploring. Then, a while later, we watched you two get stuck in a bramble on the other side of the pond. We decided we'd let the two of you find your own solution.

About ten minutes later, we saw Laney paddling the two of you back to our side of the pond, with the kayak paddle snapped back together into a single paddle, and Jude just holding on. You two explained that Jude knew how to put the paddle back together, but Laney was the good paddler. It was just SO COOL that two small people had figured that all out, and that it was totally reasonable that the girl could be the stronger one.

Then, just a few days ago, you were at a new playground with my friend Katie, and she sent me this video:

Don't know where this is all headed, but we think it's awfully impressive.

Love,

Mom