We went to the boardwalk this evening. We stopped by the Kona Ice truck my brother-in-law and his wife own at a local talent show even first because my daughter has been taking about Kona Ice since before we arrived. She has been bitterly disappointed the Kona Ice truck hasn’t been parked outside their house where we’re staying because in years past, she’s been able to go outside and get “Konas” multiple times per day.
This year it had been two days and she still didn’t have Kona yet. And she was letting us know how she felt about that. So we stopped in, had some pre-dinner dessert, and then headed to the boardwalk for dinner proper and then some rides.
Only it didn’t work out as planned. My children had gotten chilled from eating the shaved ice. It was unexpectedly cool and there was a good bit of wind. Two cold, unhappy children and we stopped in to the first sit down restaurant we ran into on the boardwalk. As we were walking there my daughter asked me what that noise was. I told her it was a tram that went up and down on the boardwalk to carry people who did want to or couldn’t walk. I explained how there were two tram paths and showed her with her cane how the path was paved, while the rest of the boardwalk was wooden boards. I pointed out the yellow painted lines on either side of the tram paths.
And that’s when fear set in. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could shake her from the topic. She talked about it at dinner. We explained how it moved slowly and the warning was so that people didn’t cause the tram to stop constantly. That people walked in the tram path the majority of the time and got out of the way when they heard the announcement. That the tram was there to help people, not to hurt them.
It didn’t matter what you said, she was fixated on the tram, it’s path and avoiding both. Including crossing it when we had to. I had her touch the stopped tram, which the first time went very badly. The second time she touched the tram and seat briefly and then wanted to get away again. She wanted to know when the tram was coming, if it had left, and constantly asked if we were on the tram path. She got mad if we were, even if we had to do so because of the crowds. It felt like a no win situation.
We thought we were a little better equipped to handle these kinds of fear situations after my talk with Dhruti the other day, but nothing seemed to work. At one point I lost my temper and left her at the fence (safely of course) and walked five steps away, saying if she wasn’t able to trust us and really didn’t want to cross the tracks then we couldn’t do anything, get anything to eat or get to our car to go home. I told her I was going to go have fun as I pretend walked away.
This was one little thing in the world that has no bearing on her life because we may never go back there again. But she focused so much on it she wasn’t able to do or enjoy anything else. We ended up not staying that long because the children were still cold and there weren’t any rides at their height that they wanted to go on.
But as far as fun goes, I don’t know if my daughter had any because she was too scared most of the time.
The Big Boy Update: My son saw Fortnite shirts at the boardwalk today. My husband and I split up with a child each for a bit and when we got back together my son had picked out a Fortnite shirt with the famous player, Ninja’s, logo on it. He will probably wear it every day for the next week.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My husband and daughter came into take a shower in our bedroom after going for a ride on a jet ski this afternoon. I was working on my computer on the bed. My daughter said to her father as they headed for the bathroom, “don’t worry about mom, she’s doing nothing.”
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