Well... kind of! It was a day spent at our "backyard", Universal Studios! For the past number of weekends, I've been wanting to enjoy this GORGEOUS Florida winter weather we are having but either I've been too tired, the boys didn't want to go, we had too much cleaning to do, or whatever. Finally, I decided I was going! Our annual passes end in March and I don't know if I'll renew, so I want to get there as much as possible before that happens.

Reese was at a wrestling tournament ALL day (he left at 6:20 this morning and won't get home until probably 10 tonight!), Nik doesn't have a pass at this time, and Mark wasn't feeling well, so it was just my little man and me.

I must say, Erik is trying so hard to grow up. He transitions from one activity/place to another beautifully - he's so easygoing that way! But he does get really scared at things sometimes. I try to push him to work through his fears, and he does try. He used to be terrified of vacuum cleaners, the food processor, the garbage truck, etc. Anything that made a big, loud noise - he'd scream and scream! Well, now, he does really well with those things! He also used to be afraid to try to walk, then to ascend/descend the ramp going into the kitchen, etc, but with gentle but firm pushing, he has conquered those fears as well! SO! Off we went to Universal with MANY scary things in it, but if he never faces his fears, well... I know him well enough to know that he will never push himself. I love the little bugger so much that I know he will enjoy life more if he can work through some things. ANYWAY! Enough of that.


One thing that scares him is the big Universal globe. He LOVES water (is almost obsessed with it!) but even so, he is too scared to walk into the mist at the bottom of the globe. Normally, I just get frustrated with him as I'm in a hurry to get a picture and get in the park, but today was just the two of us, and no one was pushing us to hurry, and we had no agenda or goals, other than to have a fun time together, so I took the time to let him get used to big, scary thing. He watched it from afar at first...


Then, we walked closer to it and let him sit at a distance and feel the mist on his hand and body.

Then, he was VERY VERY brave, and walked very close to the mist fountain at the base of the display and stood there in the mist!! He would not go up to the closest railing in, but I was SUPER impressed with how much courage he showed today!!



Okay. Here we have more MAJOR progress!! After screaming his brains out on the Jimmy Neutron ride (definitely NOT ready for that one yet!), then screaming at an I'll admit VERY scary SpongeBob character (I would have screamed too!!), Erik became a man. On our way out of the park, we spotted Scooby Doo and Curious George. While SpongeBob was terrifying, Scooby and George were calm, gentle, and unintimidating. EXACTLY what my little Piglet needed! For the first time ever, he approached a "character". (Last year, I have a picture of him screaming with ALL of his teeth showing in Mickey Mouse's face!) Mind you, he didn't really touch them or turn around to have his picture taken, but these pictures are more precious to me than a nicely posed picture of him smiling properly would have been. The patience shown by these two characters was MUCH appreciated! They obviously could see that extra time and gentleness were needed with my special little guy. :o)

Check another phobia off his "starting to conquer" list.

My son became a man today.