Boys and our Toys!

Well, while I was on R&R from Iraq the Frey's and I decided to take the kids to the water slide park in Auburn, AL. For 18 dollars it was worth the few hours in the sun to rekindle my relationship with Aiden. Now for those of you who may not know Aiden is probably one of the few 2 yr olds that don't understand that he should have at least a little bit of fear for the water. Well he doesn't. If you've read me previous post about lightning McQueen from his favorite Disney movie Cars.

So there we are at the water park. me, him, and Lightning. The three of us were actually having a great time running around the little kids pool that was maybe 24 inches deep in the deepest part. 0Well dad just wasn't enjoying himself as much as he could of, so I get this great idea to take Aiden to the wave pool. Mainly because it was deeper and the waves were turned off. So I thought it was relatively safe. Aiden was having fun and so was I. It was really cool to watch him play in the water. Plus it gave me a chance to hold him in my arms for a little while. Which was one of the things I miss being able to do while I am over here in Iraq.
So as we started to play Aiden made it perfectly clear on several occassions that he didn't want me to hold him regardless of how deep the water is. So I would let him push off of me (don't worry ladies he never went out of arms reach of me and his head stayed above water the whole time) then I would put my hands in his arm pits while he thought he was floating on top of the water. It was really cool to see the look on his face and the way he would react in the water. Well then it started, that's right the waves. So I decided to start making my way back to the shallow end so that way I wouldn't lose my balance. Well as soon as I got more than ten feet away he would scream no Maddie. So I had to take him back over by Maddie mainly to keep him happy. The thing is he never really played with her, I think he was more jealous that Maddie was in the waves and he wasn't. No biggie, I was more there for him than I was for me. So after awhile we started to make our way back over to the shallow end when it happened (I think I was in a little more than waste deep water on me) he dropped Lightning McQueen. Now before I left that morning Jennifer made it perfectly clear that the world would stop turning if anything happened to Lightning McQueen. So what does Aiden do? He let's go of me to dive under water and get his car. Sure enough he did retrieve it (I already for see the gripes that's going to bring). I was proud of my son's accomplishment of being able to scuba dive in 4 feet of water with no fear, but I was more concerned than anything.

Now I always try to tie the stories of my son in with an experience of my own. Now I to know what it is like when you have a love for a certain toy. Aiden favorite toy as we all know is Lightning McQueen. Mine, well it was the deep sea diving G.I. Joe, well now from what I was told the story goes something like this. I was about 3 yrs old and I was at my grand parents house sitting out back next to the pool. Well of course my G.I. Joe was suppose to be able to go deep sea diving so I was playing with him in the spa that connected to the pool. Now my mom told me that I couldn't go swimming on this particular day. So I was sitting there playing with deep sea diving G.I. Joe when he fell out of my hand. Well he was able to go to the bottom with no problems. So I took it upon myself to go and get him. Well getting to the bottom of the spa to retrieve me favorite toy was the easy part. Getting back, well that I didn't really think to far ahead. So I get my G.I. Joe, then it dawns on me that I can't get back to the top of the pool. So I just sat there until my mom grabbed me. I might of been under water for about 15 seconds. My mom was well you guessed rather mad that I did what I did. You would of thought I would of been crying and trying to cuddle with my mom after such a traumatizing event in my life, oh no instead I just sat there with a pissed off look on my face for getting my hair wet, yes I actually had hair when I was younger. In fact I had hair until after my third year in the Army, but that is another story that I will save for a different time in my life.