Middle Ground

Jack,

Father’s Day weekend was nice. We had two Father’s Day celebrations – one for your Daddy and one for my Dad (Poppa Dough). Grandpa Rose’s father’s day tradition since he has all sons usually consists of all the son’s that are available and in town heading to the casinos with Grandpa Rose for Father’s Day which is nice for all of them so that’s what they did yesterday and then yesterday evening we ended up at my Dad’s for dinner and hanging out with the extended family. During the morning yesterday, we opened Clay’s gifts and told him how much we love him!

Saturday was my favorite part of the Father’s Day weekend, though, because we went to a carnival for Shrewsbury Days and I took you on the Ferris Wheel. I was all excited for you to go up and down in the slow comfort of the Ferris Wheel and you were happy, but wondering about the other rides you were seeing.

After the ferris wheel you jumped in the bouncy house and after that - somehow you and Clay ended up on an upside down carnival ride together and I almost hurled through the entire occurrence. In fairness, your Daddy DID ask me if I thought it would be okay for him to take you on the ride. They had been loading people at the time and it looked like it was moving slowly and UPRIGHT and I was busy trying to put your shoes on your feet while keeping hold of your wiggly body, so I said “SURE!” You guys were in line and loaded onto the ride before I knew it. And then it started.

The ride basically was like taking a full bucket of water and twirling it around so fast that there is no chance of the water being able to fall out of the bucket, but you can’t convince your mind of that – it was that fast and UPSIDE DOWN! I felt weak and sick as I saw your excited little face rush past me every 1.5 seconds.

I just knew I was going to witness my son being rocketed off into space and coming to a horrible bloody end against the side of some other monster ride. I was disturbed and shaken and ready to die when you climbed off the ride very excited and happy and saying “I have FUN! Dat was FUN! COME ON, MOMMY! Go AGAIN!”

You thought it was a giant robot ride which made it even better in your mind.

I was so out of it that I went on it with you vaguely thinking (‘I don’t want him to know how terrifying this death trap is or how horribly close he came to death so I’ll play this off as non-challant as possible). What actually happened, though, is I ended up clutching you the entire time with my eyes closed, screaming and hoping with all my might that we would simply survive the experience.

Now I’m scared that you may not have the right mix of fear or self preservation that you should have when it comes to certain things like insanely scary rides that make my heart want to explode.

I know that there’s got to be a happy middle ground somewhere between Scared-Of-One’s-Own-Shadow and thinking One-Is-Invincible and I fear that you may be walking too close to the line of invincible now for me to be comfortable.

After that, you wanted to go on one of the big kid swing rides where the swings swing out really wide and high up and I figured if you could go upside down, this would be an easy one for you, so we let you go on it. TWICE. You were so small on that ride surrounded by other children much bigger than you and some freaking out while you smiled and twisted around to see the ride from all directions.

We only got you to leave by telling you that carnivals are all about taking turns and it was someone else’s turn to go on the scary death ride. (okay – so I only called it that IN MY MIND).

We did play a fish game and ended up going home with a fish that you have named “Orange”. Guess what color he is?

You and Mr. Orange survived the carnival in all your glory and you can’t wait to go again!

Love,

Mommy