Retraction

Well, it looks like I can point to my first case of me trying to use Ethan as a way to re-live my own childhood and make changes per my own recollections of the past.

In my last post I chided him for being a wimp. In retrospect, the park was very crowded that day and Ethan wasn't up from his name for too long when we went over. And, if you look a little closer, I always feel that some of my childhood was spent being a scrawny little kid who was afraid to do things.
Now, I know that there were plenty of things that I wasn't afraid to do (reckless things, my parents might say) but the memory is a funny thing. And the highlights often tend to be the memories that we don't want to think about.

I took Ethan to the spray park again this weekend. He was a little shy at first but this time started having fun after only a few minutes. There were almost no other kids (especially big kids that tend to run around without looking) and he started braving some of the things that seemed so scary the day before.

Maybe while he's still young it's better that I learn that he's a unique person with unique desires and fears. I can certainly do my part to provide him the opportunities to grow but I'm not going to be able to mold him into the idealized image of myself at his age. Or, at least, I can't do that without having him crack that mold wide-open at some point and rebel in ways that may be harmful to himself.

Looks like it's time for me to go back to learning how to be a parent. You'd think after 2.5 years I'd have it all figured out. Sheesh.