My in-laws were gracious enough to feed us lunch yesterday and treat us to a movie (Hotel Transylvania). What a wonderful change of scenery that we all needed. We pulled into their driveway and Kate let out a huge gasp.....her beloved climbing tree had been trimmed. Loren had done some pruning of the branches, and trimmed the limbs that Kate LOVED to climb on. He left the sturdy part close to the tree, but cut off the part of the branch that hung down and looked pretty got in the way when he mowed.
Kate was in tears immediatly, walked in the house, and with a quivering lip asked "why?!" I don't know which was more dramatic, watching her cry and demand answers from Loren, watching Loren defend his right/need to trim his tree, or watching Linda watch Kate and then look at Loren like he was evil for making her granddaughter cry. good stuff.
Anyway, Loren and I went out to try and turn her frown upside down. It took a while but she finally realized her climbing needs were still being met, just in a different way. Change is hard. Even for tree climbing girls. After some minor adjustments to her climbing area-see pictures of Loren using his saw below- we finally came up with an acceptable compromise.
Loren can mow without getting whapped in the head with branches and Kate can still channel her inner monkey.
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| Assessing the "damage".....the upper right corner of the picture shows where her climbing branch was cut. Not exactly where she was able to reach anyway, but it evidently was still important to her overall climbing experience. |
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| making some minor adjustments |
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| Tree climbing = JOY |
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