When visiting us this summer E spent a lot of time in the pool (the main reason she asked for an August trip) but she also occupied the swing seat in the back yard quite a lot. She doesn’t have a swing at her house, and has to hit up mom for a trip to the park then compete with other kids to get to use one there. Also this swing comes with a granddad attachment to keep it moving.
She usually faces into the yard, but once in a while changes direction just to get a different view. Don’t worry, in the above photo she is quite a bit away from the wall. She is continually asking to be pushed higher, wanting to touch branches with her toes, and I can get her up almost horizontally. She has not yet developed the leg pumping ability to swing herself, so somebody (usually granddad) is frequently hit upon to do the pushing.
Hoping to provide some alternate form of entertainment we obtained a single rope swing and installed it on a different branch. We thought she might be able to push with her feet and move herself around, and entertain herself.
At first she did not like it, did not want it, tried it and did not like it. Then we had a pool party with a lot of kids, and the trips from across the street just jumped on the swing and wouldn’t get off. E observed this activity and then decided that perhaps it might be something she could do. After that when somebody was too busy or tired to push her anymore she would wander over to the yellow swing and float around by herself. We put it low enough that she could sit on it and yet put her legs down and stand up, so she would push backwards and fall onto the seat, resulting in a pretty good push.
The trips also demonstrated that you could hold on to the rope and stand up on the swing. This revelation led to several attempts and eventually a new form of entertainment.
Now, if we could just get dad to put one of these in the tree in her backyard.
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