Looks like she got one of my more obscure genes

When I was in high school I was invited to go out with a friend of mine on his boat. Not a yacht, mind you, but a small sailboat he had built in his parents' garage. We drove up to the marina where he had the boat moored, and my friend hopped nimbly aboard. It was about that time that I realized that while I had been out in plenty of boats - my parents at one time had about five of them - they had all either been small enough to be launched from the beach or big enough to have a gangway ... I had never gotten into a boat from a dock before. Not wanting to end up looking like a wet, slimy, mud-covered idiot, I sat on the dock, lowered myself down with my arms and reached out for the boat with my foot.

If you've ever boarded a boat from a dock, you know that the most important tip is to do it fast. I didn't. The boat went one way, the dock stayed where it was, and I stubbornly resisted getting any closer to the nasty back basin water than I had to. My friend could sense disaster coming and started laughing uproariously, urging me to give in and let go. I was not amused. I knew the sorts of things floating in that water, and somehow I managed to actually use my foot to drag the boat close enough to the dock that I could get in. Pretty much every muscle in my entire body hurt for a few days afterward, but I did not give in and fall.

Which could explain why I keep finding my daughter in poses like this one ...

This is actually one of the less extreme versions - lately I've been giving in earlier, before the screaming starts. In one particularly memorable instance she managed to slide her legs apart like in the photo above, while sliding them backwards so that she was at a 45 degree angle to the floor while holding onto a dining room chair for dear life. That's one of the few times when I've actually seen her fall ... usually I move her legs closer together before it gets that far, but I was sweeping at the time and didn't notice until it was too late.

Anyway, it's good to see someone carrying on my tradition of avoiding falls at all costs. It's going to be interesting when it gets to be "learn to ride a bike" time around here ...