"Outside"

We hear this word all of the time from Tia. She loves going outside. We love that she does, but we aren't able to let her go outside as much as she wants. Our backyard is not in a condition to let her just roam around and play unless we are right there with her every step of the way. It not only has two very steep hills, but the retaining wall is at least 4 feet tall and she loves to climb on it and walk along the top of it too. Our front yard is equally steep and the driveway has at least a 30 degree incline. She does get to go out every once in a while, but coming back in is a chore. She is not great at transitions from fun to not so fun and she screams her head off. I've bribed her with ice cream or we've let her cry it out, but it just sucks because she goes from being on top of the world with smiles from ear to ear to crying her eyes out like it's the end of the world. We hate that. But we don't want her to just be held captive inside all the time either. After church yesterday we took her to a local park. We thought, what they heck, she deserves some good playground time. We stayed for almost an hour where she went up and down the slides by herself and we did the swings which she loves. But when it was time to go, it was trouble for mommy and daddy. I even did the countdown from 5 more minutes to 1 more minute and she did not want to leave. So we had to take her kicking and screaming. All the way home, she screamed too. We got her home and she screamed. We put her down for a nap because it was time and she just screamed. It was as if she couldn't calm herself down. So we did our best to get her calmed down, but she would not. I had to take her and rock her to sleep. This is something I love doing, but don't want her to get into the habit of it. She would fall all the way asleep, then as soon as I'd put her down, she'd go into a cry again. So I spent about 2 hours rocking her or laying with her. She is just my sweet baby and it was nice to have some mommy/Tia time. I know we are a sensitive family and when you get all worked up it can be hard to get calmed down again, so I just gave her some love and attention. I just am not sure how to give her outside play time when she will scream her head off when we leave. I guess we'll just have to keep doing it and deal with the crying until she understands, but it can be emotionally draining too. We'll get there. She's had a big month with getting rid of her pinkie...she's 3 weeks without one, literally cold turkey. She's two weeks with no more bottle and so she has had a few milestones to deal with. We just love her so much though and regardless of her sensitivity, we just love hugging and kissing on her.