Maya is currently on a two week break from school....it's her fall break.
Since I never really got to take her on a real vacation this summer, I decided to take her down to southern California to LegoLand and the San Diego Zoo. My mom came along too.
I'll [hopefully] write about our trip in another post, but I just wanted to get this one story out.
While at the San Diego Zoo we attended an animal show. You know the one where they have birds come flying out over the crowd and the water animal that does tricks for food? Well this time it was a sea lion that came out and walked around and swam around in a small pool.
The first few rows of seats in the very steep, bowl-like shaped auditorium had been marked as "Splash Zones". I imagined the sea lion would finish the show by splashing audience with water. This didn't happen for some reason. Maya was expecting this as well. The show ended and the three of us walked up the very steep steps toward the top and exit of the stadium. As we neared the top, they announced they would turn on some sprinklers in the front that would get the first few rows a bit wet. Why they waited until nearly all the people had exited the stadium I don't know...but Maya wanted to go back down to get sprayed with water...it was hot out after all.
I didn't feel like walking down the steps so I told her could go and I'd wait for her. She immediately started to whine and say she was "shy" and wanted me to go with her. I resisted and said she could go. Very quickly she started to cry and pulled on my hand and said she was scared to go alone. I attempted to ask her what she was afraid of, but she continued to cry and yelled, "Why can't you understand I'm afraid to go!?!" I was really taken back by this reaction she had. I couldn't understand what she was afraid of....there was really nobody down there and she could do was get down there and walk through the sprinklers.
I actually don't remember what I told her, but she finally decided to go down there by herself. I think I was pretty much unaffected by her crying and simply told her that if she wanted to go get wet she would have to go alone. Being a parent is often like walking on the razor's edge...you never really know if the spot decisions you often have to make are really the best ones for your child. I do sometimes wonder if I'm too hard on her while I attempt to guide her through life....hoping that what I'm doing now is helping her to build her character to be a strong and confident person that is also compassionate and fair. It's the razor's edge I tell you.
So, she walked down the stairs....got on the edge of the sprinkler spray and barely got wet and then came back up to me. No longer crying and barely wet. Together we walked out of the stadium and continued our day in the zoo.
