So here are the rest of the shots Louis took at Buatong Waterfall before he ditched the camera and joined in the fun. This place is an hour from our house in Chiang Mai near Sri Lanna National park and it is — as you can see — totally amazing. The waterfalls are made of sandstone which means that they have the texture of fine sandpaper and you can literally walk up and down an extremely steep set of about 10 cascading falls in your bare feet. In fact, bare feet may be even better than water shoes. I brought water shoes but ditched them and hiked the falls three times in a row barefoot trying to keep up with the kids who were literally running up them! Ironically, the flat spots are the slippery-est, as my friend Christina found out the hard way when she wound up on her rear in one.  The kids featured here are Finn (in the bright blue swim trunks), followed by Judah, Jeremy, and Shane (the 3 brothers who generally live in China near the Tibet border but are here while their Dad finishes a degree in linguistics), and Ben (who lives here with his older brothers and Mom Christina).  No shots of the rest of us I guess.

Let me just say that if it isn’t obvious to you already: these falls would never be accessible to humans in bare feet if they were in the US. We are far too risk and litigation-averse. Louis and I are not helicopter parents, to say the least, but this gave me a moment’s pause since if they fell, they might not survive to tell the tale. My longtime friend Van Jones (now an anchor on CNN Crossfire with Newt Gingrich!) recently posted an article on Facebook about parenting which offers scientific proof for the wisdom of an approach we have taken somewhat intuitively with Tess and Finn.  Essential takeaways regarding parents these days: 1. We Risk Too Little 2. We Rescue Too Quickly 3. We Rave Too Easily.