The Baby. The third child.  I have failed him miserably.  I knew this when we went to Disney last fall.  The poor thing knew who Mickey Mouse was, but had not a clue who any of the other Disney characters were! He had never heard of Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs. I think he had heard of Cinderella, because, well who hasn’t? He didn’t know about Dumbo or Aladdin.  He did know Jack Sparrow, but I don’t really consider him a “Disney Character”.  I’m talking about the cartoon people.  Belle and Beauty and the Beast, and the candelabra, etc.–The Baby had never seen them before. It was rather sad and I felt like a huge maternal failure.  Mini Me and The Middle Child promised to have a Disney Day with him when we got home, and watch all the Disney movies….but they have not.  It was much better when we went to Universal.  At least he knew those characters.  I chalked it up to him having much older siblings, who were on the edge of outgrowing Disney by the time he was even born.  At least that made me feel better.

Our family was invited to go to the lake last weekend.  We did not make a big deal about it to The Baby.  He doesn’t care for new things.  He gets very anxious about stuff like that.  When Saturday got here, we were all getting ready.  He came into my room and had on regular shorts.  I asked him which bathing suit he was going to take and he said he wasn’t planning on getting in that stupid, dumb lake.  Then he hung his head and stomped out of my room.  I called him back in and explained that his dad was very excited about us going to the lake as a family, and that we rarely did things like this because we were always so busy, and that I need him not to complain like that in front of his dad.  He stomped off and I continued getting ready.  I wasn’t thrilled about going to the lake either, to be honest.  I hate lake water, and Lake Lanier gives me the creeps.  The mere thought that it was built on top of a community just totally makes me cringe, but JC very rarely wanted to do this kind of shit, so I was willing to go along, happily, with no intentions of getting in the lake myself.  A few minutes later, The Baby stomped back into my room in a bathing suit, and pouting.  He asked me to help him tie the bathing suit.  I asked him if he wanted to wear his Birdwell Beach Britches that match Mini Me’s and he snarled that he couldn’t find them.  I told him I was sure I could find them and he snarled back NO.  So I tied the one’s he had on and went back to getting ready.  JC was gone to the store and to take The Middle Child to church because she was going tubing on the Chattahoochee with her youth group.  A few minutes later, The Baby stomped back into my room and asked me if I would find his Birdwell’s.  I started looking.  After 15 minutes of searching, I finally asked Mini Me if they were in his room, since they are just like his, but smaller.  Bingo! I had accidentally given The Baby’s Birdwell’s to Mini Me.  Unfortunately, Mini Me had taken The Baby’s Birdwell’s to a pool party, thinking they were his….but he couldn’t get one leg in them….bwahahahaha. Sorry, Mini Me.  The Baby is 8. Mini Me is 17.  The Birdwell’s are deep purple.  We ordered them right after Prince died.    Anyway, back to the damn story…. I got The Baby in his Birdwell’s and we got ready.  JC got back and we packed the car and left 15 minutes late.  Luckily, the people we were meeting called and were also late, so we stopped for Starbucks.  People who know us will be saying, “Imagine that.” Between our house and Starbucks, The Baby found out that we were going to be on a boat.  He was not pleased.  JC and Mini Me got out to go get our coffee.  The Baby and Mini Me’s girlfriend (who I consider my other daughter, as they have been dating a year and a half!) Allison, and I were still in the car.  The Baby told me he was really scared that he was going to get seasick.  “In fact, ” he said, “I am seasick right now, I think”.  “Oh shit”, I thought to myself.  “You will be just fine.  I promise, ” I said to him, “It is not like going on a big cruise ship or anything.” All the while, thinking about the wake when another boat goes by…..I told him he just needed to put it all out of his mind and not worry about it at all and he said “okay”.  When we got back on the road, this  is when I found out how big of a failure I am.  The Baby started asking questions like, Are there sharks in the lake?  Are Nemo and Dorie in the lake? Are stingrays in the lake?  Oh Lord.  When do kids learn the difference between saltwater and freshwater? Mini Me was in the way back of the car, laughing his ass off, saying stuff like, “NO! There are redneck fish in the lake! Fish that you eat like catfish and trout!  There are NO sharks in the lake!”  I was just up in the front shaking my head.  We finally got there.  Much pouting ensued when The Baby found out he had to don a life vest the entire day.  And…I forgot his sunglasses. Mini Me was so kind as to let The Baby wear his sunglasses.   We got out onto the lake and lo and behold, guess what? The Baby liked it.  Imagine that.   We stopped so all the kids could swim.  Guess what? The Baby jumped right in! And he LOVED it!  He would climb back onto the boat and jump off over and over!  He went tubing and LOVED it–did not want to let anyone else have a turn! He also tried wake boarding.  And when we had to go home, he wanted to know when we would get to come back!  We all had fun on Saturday.  And I managed to not get in the lake at all.  I would say it was a complete and total success…..😂