Dwarf Tossing (Chiang Mai, Thailand)

So Madison is 3. She has put her face in the water for the first time, like a week ago (but she learned to do the dog paddle and float about a day after that). She has just recently understood the concept of "If you you splash me, I'll splash you" with us all because she was taking some serious liberties with a seriously one sided game. Although she wouldn't allow water on her head before hopping on the plane to Thailand, she has actually started to like it - which is a double edged sword for people who don't actually want to splash 3 year olds all day long. Kids grow _fast_ I cant believe the changes that I have witnessed in just 2 weeks.

So the next step is the "If you dunk me, I'll dunk you" game - a break through. Its clear that she is finally ready to play and she hops with both feet on my chest to sink me to the bottom of the 1 ft deep wading pool. She looks a bit like she should be on a Mountain Dew commercial, or about to jump out of a Cessna on her first sky dive. Its obvious that she feels on the edge of some massive precipice; a pioneer in infant extreme sports. Its the last day of my time with the Moores and she has been warming up to me over the last little bit. We have kind of been in limbo land between shyness and warm trust depending on the day. She doesn't really know what to think of me and I don't really know what this whole little person thing is about. The kid in Jerry Maquire almost had it right: dogs and bees can smell fear, but nothing like kids under the age of five can. My name is Michael Reid and I am scared of kids. Maybe "scared" is the wrong word, I just REALLY don't know what to do with them (which I guess boils down to fear in the end). I gave her a little bit of assistance putting her head in the water and she came up looking like a big girl rock star. She beams. I beam. Its a big day.. both of our fears are one step closer to disappearing into the sands of time (forgive me, thats lame). She gives another leap and I go down like a wet sack of cement. In exaggerated fashion I say "wow that was a big one, get ready for a big dunk!". In the history of kid playing, there has never been a situation where anyone has blown it worse. She thinks that big dunks are little-people-nose-smashing-into-the-tiled-bottom-of-the-pool type of thing and she makes it abundantly clear that this little game is over. Anytime that she touched me in the pool after this, she got all serious and said "just so you know, I'm not dunking you." FYI bad man, the fragile trust that we have spent 2 weeks developing has been smashed like so many glass building blocks. 2 hours later, she hopped on me and I fell backwards - clearly a dunk. She looked at me seriously and said "don't worry, I'll do it" and dunked herself. Thats the whole thing, she wanted to be dunked. We aren't so different, we are each looking for reasons to stretch beyond our fears and build on our fragile accomplishments. It just has to be finessed. Kind of like when Corina puts Tyler in my hands and walks away - clearly a dunk. It stresses me out, but I like it. (until its time to do something scary like change them, then I have to crawl back into my shell).

Live and learn. I kind of recovered with Madison, but now I have to leave. I'll get that kid thing figured out one day. Rookie.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This trip has not only garnered the first(?) photos of me holding a baby (the 3rd? I have ever held), but there is live action footage of the first time I have played with one. Is it just me, or are there other 34 year olds out there with these bizarre hang ups and white knuckled fear? Why do I feel like I am a pioneer in some bizarre extreme sport? Am I just being a baby?]