My wife and I spent the evening at the local Urgent Care, watching a doctor attend to our 9-year-old daughter's bruised and oddly misshapen right wrist.

Talk about a buzz-kill.

It was March 12 — still technically winter, for God's sake — and the thermometer read about 80 degrees under sunny skies. Once the homework's done, what's a kid to do except sprint out the back door and head straight to the nearest jungle gym?

There are risks, of course. Our daughter learned that the hard way. The cast she'll be wearing for the next six to eight weeks will be an uncomfortable reminder.

But what's she supposed to do — sit inside and watch TV? On a day like this?

All of the really cool stuff comes with risks. We've got two choices:

• We can chicken out, take no chances, and keep plodding along in uninspiring mediocrity.
• Or we can run outside and try something new, something fun, something that'll keep us healthy and expand our horizons and let us do great things.

Sooner or later, the cast is going to come off. If I know my daughter, she'll head straight out the back door when it does.

All things being equal, I'd rather deal with an occasional broken wrist than miss out on the chance to play on the jungle gym.