Jam is almost five years old.
Hahaha.... it was a little over a week ago when I posted this about what happens to Jam in direct sun. And guess what happened?
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Still vacationing in Leavenworth, last night we decided to dine at a hip burger joint decked out with all sorts of hip artwork on the wall. Right off the bat, Jam lasered in on this print. It's called London Face Punch by a guy named Jeff Lamm. I think it's pretty cool and on any other day so would Jam. He usually loves Godzilla, monsters and other scary-type stuff. But today was not any other day. And Jam did not think it was cool. At all.
I should probably set this up by mentioning that a few hours prior to dinner, I had walked in on Grandpa extolling the virtues of the hotel's outdoor swimming pool to Jam. The outdoor swimming pool sitting in direct 80 degree sun. The outdoor swimming pool with lots of people and noise. I should also mention that Jam had already had his sun ration earlier in the day at the local fish hatchery. So I figured that, for this day, we were done with the sun.
And, to be fair, this hotel has two pools- one outdoors and one indoors. And the indoor one is the one we've always used because we go swimming all the time when here and we visit year-round. So it's not like the kid was missing out on swimming fun.
And, of course, after Grandpa had talked up the awesome outdoor pool, that's all Jam could focus on. Needing to go swimming right that minute. Needing to go swimming right that minute in that pool. There was no talking him out of it or delaying it or anything. And, 'it's vacation, after all'. So, against my better judgment, we went swimming. And it was gorgeous outside. And the water was nice. And it was fun. And all seemed well.
Until London Face Punch. As soon as we sat down at the table, I recognized that look on Jam's face. The look I hadn't seen in so long. The crazed, yet zoned out look that meant I would be dealing with this for the next few hours. He couldn't stop staring at the picture. I tried to talk to him about it. He said that the picture was 'scary, but fascinating' and he couldn't look away. Like a car wreck on the side of the road. So we moved outside to the deck to eat. But the picture and the monsters in it were all he could talk about and he barely ate. He talked about how we could never come back to the restaurant because of it. I lied and told him that all the artwork was for sale, like in our favorite coffee shops, and that it would probably be sold the next time we came to town. He talked about all the people in the imaginary town getting smashed. I lied and told him that the people had evacuated the town before the monsters in the picture came to destroy it. He talked about why the three monsters were fighting. I lied and told him that the one monster was a hero and attacking the other two to save the city. He wondered if the entire town was going to be destroyed. I lied and told him that Godzilla was on his way to kick some monster butt.
And, of course, none of it worked.
Afterwards, we came back to the hotel and it was all he was talking about so I decided to try taking the mystery out of the art. I thought that might break the loop of obsession he was stuck in. I looked up the artist online and told Jam all about him, how he used markers to draw his art, how he was in a music band and how he designed t-shirts. And, amazingly, there on the About page of Jeff Lamm's website was a picture of him and his little girl. We talked about what she was wearing, what she probably liked doing, how her father was using his art to make a living to take care of her. Anything to take the 'scary' out of the monsters. And, finally, he did seem to calm down a bit. And every time he mentioned the 'monsters in the picture' the rest of the night I reminded him to think about Lamm's little girl in the brown and pink coat instead. And he finally kicked off to sleep.
This is just Jam's SPD brain on too much sun. Which isn't very much sun at all. He doesn't get like this any other time. No matter how ill or tired he may be, it isn't like this. I'm absolutely sure that if we hadn't gone into that sunshiny pool, he would not have had such an intense, immoveable reaction to that picture.
I could have (and maybe should have) put my foot down and insisted on the indoor pool. But, you know, sometimes it's good to re-test the waters, so to speak. To measure where Jam currently is in terms of needs and ability. And right now, it appears that Jam still needs his sun exposure limited.
This morning, he woke up all refreshed and happy, done with monsters. And, as luck would have it, it's raining. So we're all good here today!
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