honey, i shrunk her confidence

two weeks ago my fam took a trip to visit some extended fam in san diego. my parents & beth drove down, and i flew in a day later. on this trip, Beth and I went to Disneyland. (she hadn't been to a theme park since Disneyworld in 04). we started out on Pirates of the Caribbean - a tradition - and I didn't take into account the fact that she has grown increasingly afraid of the dark over the years. she spent most of the ride clutching my arm, and i talked her through most of it to calm her. at the end, she said it was fun, but she didnt want to do it again.

from there we went to Splash Mountain - her apparent favorite ride. we shared the log with a family of four, and Beth & I got the back two seats. she wanted to sit behind me, so she had the very very back seat. she's a hefty girl, so it was hard for her to get in, but she made it. she enjoyed that one a ton - she read every sign out loud and laughed at all the critters. thankfully the family we went with had two girls around the same mental age as Beth, so they didn't seem annoyed at all. when the ride was over and we were getting out was when it got pretty bad: I would always get in rides and out of them first as to help her getting in / out. I got out of my seat so she could step on it, but as she went to stand up, she couldn't pull her foot up high enough to get it around the back of my seat. I tried in vain to verbally instruct her, but she sat back down and just said "I can't do it!" By this point I was pretty embarassed as we were holding up the ride and our log members were long gone, replaced by the new group ready to get the ride going. The woman getting in my seat after me went in to help pull her up. After a few attempts she eventually got her upright and her leg over, and I helped her out of the log. I was mortified and utterly embarassed not only by the hold up, but by the fact that I just stood there and let someone else help. I apologized profusely, but the lady who helped her told me she had two cousins with Downs, and she understood. We repeated some rides that day, but everytime Beth brought up Splash Mountain, I would have some excuse as to why we shouldn't go back. Secretly, I just couldn't stand to go through that again.



I know its not her fault, and my dad always tells me "that's life - people need to learn to deal with it!" but it's a lot easier said than done. I don't like holding people up, and I don't like what they say when they're getting impatient. I know she knows people don't understand her, and she knows she's different, but I'm glad she doesn't know what people say, or why they won't understand her...





this blog isn't going to be depressing, I promise! I've just not been able to get this bit off my mind..