Caleb at the Pool

A friend invited us to spend a few hours at her neighborhood pool yesterday morning, and we all three had a great time. There were several other mothers from church there, and plenty of little playmates for Caleb and Ethan. Caleb, however, was more interested in a large group of elementary-school-aged boys. They were all playing with water guns, splashing each other, and even wrestling a little in the water. Caleb was sitting on the side with his water shooter, studying them. As he reached into the water to refill his water shooter, I called out a warning. "Caleb, if you shoot at those big boys, they are going to shoot at you." He glanced back at me, but, undaunted, he aimed and fired. His water shooter had a better trajectory than the water guns they were playing with, and he hit the biggest kid, a muscular African American, square on top of his shaved head. The kids fell silent and a group of heads turned toward the source of the stream of water. I was a little nervous for a second, but, one-by-one, the kids started laughing and teasing the big guy, "It was that little dude! He got you good!" Caleb grinned and hopped in the water, swimming toward the group.

He continued to play with that group of older kids until we left the pool almost an hour later. They called him "little dude" the whole time, and he held his own in the water-gun wars, not once crying or reacting to being shot, even when he got it in the face. I guess he wasn't about to risk the respect he gained for that first well-planned shot :)