The following post is something I wrote for another blog back in May of this year, on my middle son's 6th birthday. His greatest wish was to spend the evening at Disneyland with his daddy, so I took him out (renewed our Annual Passports while we were there) and got him his Birthday button. He was so proud of that thing!
While we continue to work on HalloweenTime posts, I thought it might be a good opportunity to migrate it here.
It has been modified slightly from its original form. - Chad
For the last couple of weeks, when I've had the privilege of walking my children to school in the morning, I've also had the privilege of standing idly by while Michael and Nicholas, curious as they are, walked over to my son's little kindergarten playground to see the bird's nest. Apparently, a rather "fat" pigeon was perched in said nest protecting her eggs.
But yesterday was different. When the boys walked over to look at the nest, the eggs and the "fat" pigeon weren't there any more. I'm not really sure what happened to them, but it really made the boys quite sad.
Yesterday also happened to be my son's sixth birthday. He'd been telling me for months that one of the things he wanted most was to be taken to Disneyland by me on his birthday; we never had before. So, not having to ask me twice about going to Disneyland, I dropped off the other boys with their mom and drove the 40 minutes to Anaheim for his birthday celebration.
I really can't explain why we did what we did next. Although my kids have been in Disney's California Adventure many times and have their favorites already mapped out there, our first ride of the day was something Nicholas had certainly never expressed any interest in whatsoever; Soarin' Over California.
I was more than willing to ride with him (it's one of my favorites), but I was a little bit worried about him. I knew that if he ever got on the attraction, he would love it, but in the meantime, there was plenty of line and time ahead of us for him to get himself worked up in. Sure enough, within minutes I looked down at my little man and saw his eyes drop to the floor. I asked him what was wrong (knowing full well what his answer would be), and with little tears trickling from his eyes, and his little lip quivering, he whispered to me "Daddy, I'm scared." And while a part of me felt the almost overwhelming desire to take him out as fast as my legs would carry us, I instead knelt down beside him and held him close to me and told him he'd be okay, and that I'd always be there to take care of him; I told him there was nothing to be afraid of.
For the next half hour or so, we meandered through the lines while I pointed out all of the pilots and planes on the wall. I was trying anything I could think of to keep him mellow. The entire time, though, I was wrestling with myself. It was only a ride, after all. Was I doing the right thing? Was it worth frightening him?
As we neared the boarding gate, he made one last ditch effort to get out of line using the "bathroom" excuse, but again instead of caving I did my best to reassure him (thank God he didn't really have to pee!). Before you knew it, we were listening to Mr. Patrick Warburton (love that guy!) give us our last minute pre-flight instructions, I was buckling him into his seat, and we were off.
Aside from the running monologue I kept giving him on the flight (to encourage him) it was a quiet flight. I kept glancing over at him to see his reactions, but for the most part, I just listened to what his hand was saying to me. It never left his daddy's the entire time. On the parts where we glided, he relaxed. On the parts where we flew fast, he squeezed and held me tight. And in the end, when we left our seats and I asked him what he thought of it, my son soared!
And I couldn't help but think of the "fat" pigeon and her little eggs, and how if they had been left to their devices they would have eventually become little birds in their own right, at first scared, but then later ready to take flight. And I can't help but think that my little boy is growing up. He's in the pre-flight himself, and one day soon he'll be ready to soar completely on his own. He won't need my hand to hold and squeeze anymore.
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| One satisfied little boy meets Mickey |
2 comments:
Really enjoyed reading this one.
Thanks, Paul. :)
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