city boy

the first night we arrived in nc cashel was so excited to catch lightening bugs.  we had talked about them and mimi had bought him a little cage to put them in.  at dusk we all went outside and mimi and papa proceeded to catch lightening bugs and put them into the cage.  cashel is such a city boy.  he was apprehensive about touching the lightening bugs so let mimi and papa run around the back yard collecting them for him.  he kept saying, "there's one over dere.  go catch it!" 

on the first friday of our trip we went to visit my good, high school friend, lloyd and his son, john.  it was great for cashel to have a little playmate.  cashel did what cashel does and about 5 minutes in said, "i want to go outside."  so we went outside.  john immediately got on his bike and starting riding it.  cashel had no interest in riding a bike (he's not really tried too hard yet to even learn) or to ride a scooter.  he saw the swing set in the back yard (field really, it's 12 acres!) and wanted to go to it but didn't want to go alone.  it was about 50 yards from me and i didn't want to go so i told him he had to go with john.  he finally gave in and went to play on the swing set while lloyd and i attempted to start to catch up on the back porch.  cashel came up and wanted water.  wish granted.  then would not go back to the swing set to play with john.  he kept saying he didn't want to. he didn't like getting sweaty.  he was afraid of the spiders.  well...we have spiders and spider webs all around our house in california and he's never feared sweat before.  john finally came up to the porch and wanted to go watch his cousin clear land with a tractor for a house he's going to build.  lloyd told john to show cashel where to go.  they would be going behind the barn and then some ways down a trail - far out of my sight.  it's the country.  cashel's not used to it so he just watched john race down.  lloyd stood up and told me to relax and said he would walk cashel down.  he did.  about 3 minutes later cashel came back (with lloyd). 

five minutes later three older kids came around the back of the house on a golf cart.  john got on but cashel didn't want to go.  lloyd put cashel on (he surprisingly didn't fight it) and lloyd told the young girl driving, "you've got a city boy here.  he's not used to this so go easy."  cashel sat there and i think he actually had a good time riding around. 

after this we went inside where cashel felt more comfortable.  he and john ended up wrestling a while later.  lloyd was impressed with cashel's skills.  some time later we went outside again where john got back on his bike and instead of cashel riding anything, he decided to show off how fast he could run.  we had about ten races and i think cashel won every one of them. 

it was good boy time for him.  something my city boy really, really needed.