You all know the saying once bitten twice shy, right? Well, even though my son can't quite relate to English sayings yet, I bet he understands them in reality. This is a story of a little boy, 7yrs young, from a little village in the Mount Kenya region.
After my separation with his dad, we, my son and I, moved back to my hometown. I felt then, it was the only option on my plate. He was only 1 year 4 months young at that time. He has grown to know and familiarize with one place, Nyeri-my hometown. You see in Nyeri, we have no big water bodies apart from a few dams and that’s it. However, in my home town there's one river my son is familiar with, its called River Thuti. Its not a big river, except during heavy rains when it overflows and damages our arrowroots. So he never had before seen an endless site of a large water body.
That, however, changed when I decided to move away from home and seek greener pastures at the coastal region of Kenya. After landing a job and settling down, I waited for the long holiday to invite my son to coast. Since I couldn’t go get him, I made arrangement with my sister to bring him over. Oh my, it is a shame to declare that my son boarded the new SGR train before me; I haven’t boarded any trains yet…I still have a long way to go.
There is this custom, I suppose, that you can't come from upcountry and fail to visit the Indian Ocean beaches. When I went to introduce my son to the Indian Ocean, you can guess his shock and amazement when he saw the ocean. I will forever cherish his first sentence when he saw it. He was like “mom, where does this big river go?” Oh yeah! He called it a big river, a whole ocean was diminished to a river, God bless his innocent soul.
I admired his curiosity and bravery as he walked with me and his aunt into the waters of the Indian though he knew nothing about swimming. One of the guys offered us a floater to use for the sake of my sister and son. It was supposed to be a fun experience, but the waves had other plans. As soon as I placed my son on my sister's lap on the floater, a wave hit us so hard that we capsized. We had somehow miscalculated the wave. Under the wave, I lost all sense of direction. In a heartbeat my parental instincts were aroused when I suddenly remembered I had my son with me and he might be drowning.
A few seconds later, I panicked as I emerged from the water–only to see my little brave warrior running for the shore crying and trembling. I was glad that the wave had pushed him out to the shore rather than pinning him under water. He, on the other hand was not as glad as I was. He was terrified for his little soul and body. He refused to go into those waters again, even for a photograph. Even after a few days, he still refused to go near the water. My baby is now terrified by large water bodies. I don’t know if on his next visit he will want to try the ocean and the floaters but I guess I have to wait. Babies are a blessing and parenting can be tough especially when you are a single parent but the little moments turn stress to laughable moments. Dear Ralph, I love you.
Have you ever had a similar experience with your child? I'm eager to hear your story in the comments. Thank you for stopping by and giving my story a read. I appreciate it.
In the photos is my son, my sister and I.