Making decisions has become extremely painful lately. Deciding what he wants to wear or what he wants to eat can take forever and is torture for everybody involved. His desire for perfection causes him to crave options that are not available, his indecisiveness makes choosing a second best option laborious, and his contrariness forces him to automatically reject any suggestion we make.
He is still afraid of almost every possible external danger, but at the same time acts as though there's no way his own actions will ever harm him. Even a small dog on a leash now turns him into a trembling wreck, but he'll bravely climb and jump off things like gravity is his best friend. He loves to run, but is yanked back by an invisible chain if he senses that he's more than ten yards from us. That said, we did make a little progress on those fears this week.
On Thursday, at Purple Flower Mountain (a safe fenced-in space), he managed to follow his friend Sadie a lot farther away from Steve than he can normally handle before panicking and running back to him.
On Saturday morning, since our usual playground is still under construction, we went to Gold Star Park, which has lots of lovely shade, but no swingsets. The biggest difference though is that it's basically a dog park with a playground in the center, so there were dogs everywhere with no barrier between them and us. Every few minutes, Zeeke had to throw himself into Steve's arms because a dog got too close. If we weren't meeting friends there, Steve might have taken him home or to another park. But then something amazing happened. A dog named Luna and her owner sat down at a nearby bench. After we talked about how cute and fox-like Luna looked, Zeeke actually asked if we could pet her. Fortunately, Luna and her owner were more than happy to comply. Zeeke was still afraid of her face (he has strong feeling about doggie kisses), but delighted in gently petting her back and tail. Jen & Amelie arrived and the kids had a fine time playing on the jungle gym and meeting other kids. One of their favorite games was putting Amelie's cat doll to bed and then waiting for Jen or Steve to say something so that they could run over and tell us to be quiet because we were waking the baby.
When we got home from the park, Zeeke worked dilligently on a birthday card for his friend Lettie. After his nap, we went to her birthday party. He couldn't resist the urge to pick a handful of the cherry tomatoes from their garden. Fortunately, being told he had to eat them wasn't too rough of a punishment. After pizza and cake, the kids had a spectacular time getting wet in the sprinkler.
On Sunday, Zeeke asked if we could go back to the same playground so that he could pet Luna again. Sure enough, she was there and Zeeke got to pet her. Then he petted another dog as well! When we finished at the park, we headed over to the classic car show on Passyunk. Zeeke's favorite was a snazzy old pickup truck painted yellow and blue (his two favorite colors). We ran into his friends Zack and Jacob. Eventually, we settled in at the craft table for stamps and markers. Karen joined us and we all went out to Birra. After his nap, Zeeke wanted to have a tea party, mostly as an excuse to eat cookies. When that was over, we did some yoga. Zeeke is extra adorable when he's saying "Namaste."