Mr. Cautious is his name

We all know that Ethan is a little on the cautious side. He always has been and probably always will be. An example...if you ask him if he wants to be a race car driver when he grows up, his answer will be, "No, it is too dangerous." Just the other day he told me that he will NEVER want to play football because it just looks too dangerous because they purposely run into each other. Well, this leads me to the story that I just had to share today. Ethan has this book on outer space. He has always been fascinated with the planets and could name the entire solar system by the time he was four years old. He was begging me to read him this Space Encyclopedia he has. It's not really the kind of book that you just sit down and read to somebody like a story book, but since he has been having self esteem issues with his reading (thanks to his sister) and has avoided books lately, I was thrilled that he brought me a book to read him, even if it was an encyclopedia. So, I asked him what he wanted to learn about and he just said all of it. We just started at the beginning and read about things like how stars were formed and about black holes and just general things about the galaxy. Well, we turn the page and there is a little insert in there about the Northern Lights. I thought it was pretty and decided it would be something neat to learn about. I started explaining to Ethan about "The Northern Lights" and started telling him what it was and he immediately interrupted me. He said, "You mean the Aurora Borealis?" I just looked at him dumbfounded. His cousin, Chase, (who is in the 4th grade, by the way) was in the room and he turned around so fast and said, "How the heck did he know that?" At the same time, I asked Ethan where he had heard about that before because I didn't think they had learned about that in school yet. I know I had never taught him about it before. I just couldn't imagine where he had learned it. He told me that he just knew what it was because he had heard about it before. I asked him where in the world he had heard about the Aurora Borealis. Now, his answer is classic...He said, "From my movie Snow Buddies." I just busted out laughing. See, TV isn't all bad! After we finished laughing, we went on to talk about the Northern Lights and we read about them in the Space Encyclopedia. I told Ethan that one day when he grows up that maybe he'll get the chance to actually see the Northern Lights in person. His eyes got really big and he said, "NO WAY!" I was kind of shocked by his response and asked him why he wouldn't ever want to see it in person. Now this is where the Mr. Cautious comes in. He said, "Because I might get frostbite." After letting out a big sigh, I just shook my head and said, "Ethan, you know they make special coverings to protect your body against something like that. They call them gloves, hats, boots, and stuff like that. It's not like you'd be dropped in the middle of the wilderness and expected to survive like that guy on TV." Ethan just kind of laughed and said, "Oh yeah." Sometimes I worry about him never allowing himself to experience life because of his irrational fears.

Yesterday afternoon we were able to take the boat out for our first fishing trip of the year. The weather was nice and we had a good time. Well, most of us had a good time. Ethan had a rough time the first half of the trip because he happened to see a bumble bee at the dock and the boy is deathly afraid of bees and wasps. So, for about an hour or so into the fishing trip, he sat and cried uncontrollably because he thought another bee would suddenly appear. Once again, irrational fear rears its ugly head. After a while, he saw how much fun everybody else was having and he decided to join in. Actually, what did it was that he saw how much fun Emily was having doing her "practice casts" into the water. I've never seen a child have so much fun fishing without a hook. We started her out fishing with the whole setup, hook and all. It wasn't long before she started asking us to take the hook off so she could just do her practice casts. That girl was a wild child. We all had to duck when she started casting and I think Chase got hit in the head several times with her bobber. Emily would just laugh so hard and get all of us laughing and it wasn't long before Ethan just had to join in on the fun. He soon asked if he could do some practice casts, too, and his daddy removed his hook as well. Then we had two flying bobbers to watch out for. Chase and I made the big catches of the day. We both caught sting rays. Chase was so excited. Between the boating trip and having ice cream for breakfast yesterday morning, he said that yesterday was the best day he had ever had.