A day at the park...

As our family entered the LEGOLAND® theme park today, it was interesting to see how each of the kids felt about the experience. Our two sons were bouncing off the proverbial wall with excitement. The girls, on the other hand, were less than thrilled. Our oldest, Audra, had hopes of spending the entire day at the beach. Again. Sierra just wanted to be anywhere BUT the amusement park. Her idea of fun has nothing to do with roller coasters and she entered the park with utter dread. She basically did not want to partake in anything that left the ground. Even a little. 

It is here that I should offer a bit of family history. Not about roller coasters, but about lessons we strive to teach our children. My husband and I spend a fair amount of time reminding the kids that our family doesn't do what everyone else does. They will come home and tell us about something that their friend's parents let their friend do and why don't we let our kids have the same freedom. Our response is simple and it's always the same. There will always be things that others do that we just don't. And, one of my favorites, just because so and so does it doesn't make it right. With that said, our kids have grown accustomed to hearing about our standards being different from the world's standards.

All of this landed on me in a comical, ironic way during one moment at the park. We were standing in line for my favorite roller coaster. It happens to be our oldest son's favorite, too. I turned around and saw my husband dragging Sierra over to stand in line with us. She was obviously upset and wanted absolutely no part of the fun. After a brief meeting and a persuading argument from Sierra about how this horrible experience would negatively affect her in her adult years, we let her sit this one out. Grateful does not do justice to her response. So, the five of us were left waiting in line.  

As we were waiting, the roller coaster roared overhead and Colton, our youngest, immediately changed his mind. He began crying and begged us not to take him. Our immediate response was to tell him, "Look at all the other people who are excited to go on the ride. Look at that little tiny boy, he doesn't look scared." After several minutes of this, it hit me. Here we have taught him his entire life NOT to look at what others are doing as a gauge. The mixed message the poor kid was processing was not lost on me. So, we told him to do what he wanted to do. If he wanted to ride, we'd take him. If he wanted to sit this one out, he could wait with Sierra. 

He ended up sitting with Sierra for about three minutes before running back over to ask us some questions. "Is this roller coaster fast?"  

We told him, "No."  

"Does it go high into the air?" He continued. And again we reassured him that it was a roller coaster made for kids. 

Now, it is here that we could have been a bit more specific. Fast is a relative, subjective word. Fast to me may be quite different from what someone else would consider fast. The same goes with high. We did not think of this as we poo-poo'd his fears. We knew that it was a great ride for kids and it certainly wasn't too fast or too high for us.

Based on the optimistic answers we gave, he decided to give it a go and jumped back in line. As we boarded the coaster, we gave little Colton the thumbs up. His bottom lip quivered and he was definitely showing signs of second thoughts. As the tick, tick, tick of the track thumped under us, he began to cry. He was riding with his big sister - the brave one - and sat just behind me. The ride started harmlessly enough, weaving through a dark cave of wild creatures all cleverly made of LEGO's.  

And then it happened. We came out of the cave and went straight up. This is when Colton screamed for help. I'm pretty sure I heard him ask someone to make it stop. We reassured him and told him to relax and have fun. As we conquered that first big hill and came screaming down and around the other side, he lost it. All we could hear him scream was, "Everyone lied to me." "Everyone lied to me." He said it over and over, as if that would somehow make the ride more bearable. It was funny and sad all at the same time.

When we made it to the bottom, we moved off to the side and congratulated him on his courage. He said it didn't seem so high and so fast once he was done - he had forgiven us.  With this, we suggested he run and tell Sierra how much fun he had so she'd want to ride next. His eyes twinkled, he smiled and off he ran. As I mentioned, fast and high are definitely subjective. And to a younger brother trying to pull one over on his sister, they are also relative - in both senses of the word.