hi-fiving the stilt walker
Last month, we stumbled across a kite carnival at West Coast Park whilst grabbing lunch at Macca’s. Ollie had a blast watching the kites, munching on free popcorn and basically going crazy at the playground. We found out that there was to be final kite festival later in August and thought we’d make an outing and bring Ollie along.
Thankfully it was a beautiful day out, the sun was blazing down but there was a breeze. Ollie was wandering around on his own, looking at the kites and the various performances. He wasn’t sure about the mime artist, but he sure had his favourite performers, two stilt-walkers in costumes with bubble blowers and wands. He even gave one of them a hi-five!
Donald then decided to let Ollie free and mingle around with the kids and let him chase some bubbles. Ollie was basically the smallest person in the crowd of kids. The other older kids were jumping around and bursting the big bubbles, whilst Ollie could only TRY to jump (he hasn’t quite figured it out yet) and ended up chasing after the smaller bubbles. At one point in time, Donald and I could see that he was really bummed out. He would frown slightly, with a small sulk, stomp around a little before being distracted when he heard the other kids squealing, cos it would mean there was another round of bubbles coming!
As a mother, I felt for him. He was trying really hard and was not reaping anything at all. He didn’t burst into tears, he settled for smaller bubbles and he tried again to reach for the bigger bubbles that were way out of his reach. In the end, Donald gave him some help by picking him up and rushing for the next big bubble for him to burst. Ollie got one, but he was okay with it. Not extremely ecstatic about it. Hmmm..had he already given up?
Ollie ran around a little more, had some water, and then this mama stepped in. Let’s lift Ollie a little differently. Haha. Not that Donald was carrying him the wrong way. Just that I thought it was fairly restrictive, Ollie would have to hold on to Donald with one arm, and only had another arm free to burst a bubble. I lifted Ollie at his hips, so he would have two arms free to wave around. He got two bubbles in his face and he was squealing happily. I was happy to see Ollie happy again. Donald then said to me, ” Feel better about restoring your son’s self-esteem again?” hahah damn sure I am.
I guess, down the path of parenthood, there are gonna be days when things just get your child down, and it is our role to provide the support and encouragement that they need. How far will I be willing to support my child’s interest and dreams if he is willing to put in the hardwork? Probably as much support as I can, both emotionally and financially. But ask me again when I have to split all that support between all my kids. Surely there would be a trade off somewhere?