Being Brave

Being brave is not exactly a strong suit of my eldest son. Gabe excels in many areas. For example: talking, reading, talking, writing and well, talking are all things he is good at. For the life of me I don't know where he gets the talking skills from. Ha! Anyway, while I happily say that Gabe is great at many things, he is just not very courageous. In a situation that is unfamiliar, potentially scary or new to him he will choose to sit back and see how things pan out. Or perhaps observe how other kids are handling the situation, or really just do nothing at all to involve himself in any way. Caution on the whole is not a bad thing. I have a feeling we will never have to worry about Gabe being the one amongst the group of teenage friends to suggest a 100 mile an hour drag race in the middle of the night. And that is a blessing! But at his current age, there are moments when he is missing out on safe and fun things because he is too scared to even try something. Maddox on the other hand is the one we have to restrain. He will always go headfirst into smething without even looking back! Now him, we will have to worry about drag racing!

While we were in Alabama, we visited a water park in Auburn, a neighboring town. Twice actually. It is not a very big one, but it is more than sufficient for a four & two year olds day of fun. They have a really cute children's area with a large shallow pool, water gun things, a giant floating crocodile, water fall and a slide. The first time we were there, Maddox ran to the slide first thing and went down with no reservations. And he loved it.

My sister and I tried all kinds of coaxing to get Gabe to go down. I even resorted to bribery! But nothing doing. A few weeks later we went again, this time my nephew Jordan came along. Gabe wants to do anything and everything Jordan does. I thought that maybe since Jordan would go down Gabe would also. But again, Gabe steered clear of the slide. I asked him why he didn't want it to go down, to which he replied, "It will hurt me." After being there for a few hours, I did what (in my opinion) any good parent would do. I made my screaming, kicking and yelling kid go down the slide. I pushed from the top and my sister caught him at the bottom. I got to the bottom and relieved my sister of the screaming Gabe and calmed him down. I asked him if it hurt him to go down. He replied, "Well no." I told him I was proud of him for going down even though he didn't want to. That I wanted to show him how the slide would not hurt him, that it could be fun. I hugged him and loved on him. Once he was tired of the loving he shoved off me and proceeded to go down the slide for the next four hours...non stop!

Soakin' up the Sun!


Continuing with the theme of bravery...the Fourth of July! Fireworks, loud noises and bright lights. Not Gabe's strong area...again. But it actually went better than expected. Michael told Gabe ahead of time that he had to watch at least one loud firework from my parents front porch (we were shooting them of in the front yard) and try one sparkler. Then if he still didn't like it he could go inside the house. He surprised us and himself by liking the loud fireworks. Just as long as he didn't have to get too close. And after much coaxing to try a sparkler he decided he liked those too!
Maddox, my Mom, Gabe and my Grandmother watching the fireworks. This was before Gabe decided he liked the loud fireworks.

Maddox and the giant sparkler.

Gabe and Nonnie cautiously doing the sparkler.

And because I was so proud....my Fourth of July dessert, a fruit pizza. Very patriotic colors. And very yummy!