You may have noticed that Rowan has developed a bit of a uniform this summer.
His Greenlee Construction hat with his green sunglasses. He bought the Affinity Credit Union promo shades at a garage sale for a quarter. His method that he would even tell you himself is that he never wears the sunglasses, but they decorate his hat. Lol! That isn’t entirely true, but he likes having access to his shades at all times, since we’ve learned he gets very grumpy if he’s too hot or its too bright. So they’re kind of a safety net.
He loves this setup so much, to the point of putting his sunglasses onto his hat the moment he gets in the door after school. He’s not supposed to have them at school, and I’m ok with that. But he wears the hat with the sunglasses in the house constantly. He is attached!
So, back to camp we went last weekend. It was very very quiet, and we loaded everyone onto the golf cart to go take a drive around the loops and see who was all around. We found a large gathering at the campground managers site, where he had invited seemingly everyone that was at the camp that day, for a wiener roast. He waved us over and invited us to join, refusing to take no for an answer. So we joined the party, became acquainted with some new people, and visited with some people we already knew. Friendly people interviewed our children about school, helped them with their food, and we all got to know each other.
We had a really, really nice time, but it got dark and late and the kids were starting to slip a little, so we decided to call it. We walked to the golf cart, and the kids all piled on. As we drove away from such a lovely evening, Rowan flew off the golf cart and ran to pick up his precious sunglasses off the ground.
They were absolutely destroyed. Both arms were ripped off, beyond repair. Now these were just little cheap shades, but they were a prized possession for him, and he was devastated. Rowan normally opts for anger, and he can get unreasonable pretty quickly, but he put his head against my chest and just cried and cried. He was SO sad.
He was able to recover before bed, and he found some little silver linings that helped encourage him. But we gave him lots of room to feel sad, and he took it.
The next morning, we were down by the water, just running around, skipping stones, etc. when a friend of ours popped by in his golf cart. We only know this guy from camp, and he’s slowly become invested in our family this summer, though we all pretend he hasn’t. Its all a lie. He inquired to Rowan where his sunglasses were, and Rowan didn’t answer. So I filled him in. And immediately, he told Rowan to climb onto his golf cart, and they took off together.
They were only gone for a minute or two.
Rowan had fresh sunglasses on top of his hat. He actually said the words to me “I don’t feel as sad at all anymore. I LOVE these sunglasses!”
As our friend from camp says, they’re just Mr. Lube sunglasses, and they had coffee on the arms, but Rowan was vastly unconcerned. And it was only made WAY better when we all learned that they glow in the dark!!
Rowan was back once he got some shades back atop that melon of his.
I was so proud of Rowan for handling his emotions SO well, addressing what he was actually feeling – sadness and disappointment. I was so proud of our other kids, who tried to comfort him and let him be sad. I was proud of our friend, who doesn’t care to connect with too many people, for connecting with a young kid he didn’t have to connect with. And I carry some bonus pride for Rowan, again, who threw away his old sunglasses all on his own at the end of the weekend.
These things may seem small, but for Rowan, they were huge. And he did really, really well š
Rowan can do hard things!