For a long time Fin's only goal in life was to ride a roller coaster. Ask him what he wanted to do when he grew up, and the inevitable answer would be, "I wanna ride a roller toaster!" One of our greatest tools in our "get Fin to eat" arsenals was the "don't you want to grow bigger so you can go on the roller coaster?" Almost always works. This Sunday all that eating finally paid off for our little man. While he went on the Tower of Terror ride a while ago, he just so happened to be wearing his cowboy boots, which gave him an extra little boost in the height department. If you are unfamiliar with the ride, its an "elevator" that takes you up, oh I don't know ten stories or so, where huge doors open up so you can see just how high you are (any maybe find your car in the parking lot) and then drops you all ten stories, all amidst a lot of lightening, loud music and screams. A woman who was waiting with me for her family (Josh took him on the ride) exclaimed "HE went on the ride?!" when she saw Fin come out. When asked if he liked it, he said, "Yeah, but it was just a tiny bit scawey." On Sunday when my uncle asked him if he wanted to go on it again, he politely said, "No thank you." So I kind of thought the whole roller coaster thing was postponed. But on Sunday my family decided they wanted to go on Big Thunder Mountain, and when Fin found out it was a train, he was all in. At about 41.5" he was all ready to go. Thankfully there wasn't a long line. I think if he had to stand there and watch the train come barreling by he would have chickened out. We got into our train car, and I pushed that little lap bar as far as it would go and still allow me to breathe. He didn't make a sound the entire ride, and I covered his ears in the caves (where seriously it was so loud it hurt my ears). When we came around the last turn and slowed down a bit, he was quiet, then suddenly looked up at me and exclaimed "THAT WAS FUN!! CAN WE DO THAT AGAIN?! PWEASE CAN WE?!" We went and had lunch, and he pestered us again and again till Josh finally took him on it again. After that we all headed for Space Mountain. Same height requirement, and again, no line to speak of, so Uncle Rick took Parker, and we all headed for space. He sat with me again, and again I pushed that bar down, put my arm around him and held on tight. As we plummeted and turned and whooshed and whizzed, my stomach sank. I had forgotten how dark it was inside (we all agreed later that it was darker than it usually was, the track was completely invisible). I just kept thinking, oh god, I've scarred him for life, he's going to be terrified, he'll never go on another ride again. As we pulled into loading dock I looked down at him, ready to console him. His eyes were huge and he was silent.
"Whatcha think Boogs?"
my heart skipped a beat as he stayed perfectly still. And then he beamed at me
"THAT WAS FUN!!!!! YEAH! These are some rides Mama! They sure are!! Can we do that again, can we can we??!!"
I looked back at my mom, and read in her face the same relief I felt. "I'm so glad he liked it" She said softly as we walked out, "I was so worried once we got in there, it was so dark, I thought for sure he was going to be scared."
"I know. I did too."
Sometimes we don't give our babes enough credit do we?
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