Monkey Joe Fears = Gone!

Phew!!!  Collin finally conquered his Monkey Joe fears today.  The first time he met Monkey Joe (which is a huge character that lives at the Monkey Joe bounce place), he stopped jumping on the indoor inflatable slide, started to scream and cry and then ran straight for the front door.  He wanted out....and wanted out....NOW!  Six months after that, I thought we would try to go to Monkey Joe's again.  We pulled up to the place, he saw were we were and then told me he did not like Monkey Joe and wanted to leave.  He started to even whimper a little.  I was not about to pay to play and then have to leave immediately. 

You might recall, that recently, Collin has been telling EVERYONE he sees that he is having his birthday party (yes, it's still several months away) at Monkey Joe's and he is going to be 4.  I have no idea where he got this and why he would want to go to Monkey Joe's again since I thought he did not like Monkey Joe.  So, today I knew we were going to attend Spencer and Rafe's (friends from school) birthday party at Monkey Joe's.  This could either go really well or really, REALLY bad.  I told (actually, warned) Collin that we were going to a party and it would be at Monkey Joe's.  He just wanted to know if his party would be there too.  I was secretly hoping that this party would help him 1) stop talking about his party being at Monkey Joe's and 2) that he would not be afraid of THE Monkey Joe when or if he saw him. 

We arrived at the place and before we got out of the car, Collin announced that he would give Monkey Joe a kiss and shake his hand when he saw him.  Huh?  A kiss and shake his hand?  Well, that's better than saying, "I will scream and run out of the place when I see Monkey Joe."  Well, at least this was a positive start.  As soon as we went inside, he saw some friends and started to play and run around.  Within 10 minutes, he was already dripping with sweat (a Holmes trait) and having a great time.  Monkey Joe was no where in sight.  Maybe he was not there today.  That would be great.

The kids played for 45 minutes and then it was time to go to one of the party rooms for to sing and have cake and ice cream.  I was shocked at how easy it was to get Collin to go into the room.  He helped sing "Happy Birthday".  He saw the hostess passing out cake and ice cream and he told me that he was not hungry.  Yep, that's my son...he does not care to eat cake or ice cream.  He'll eat it but it's not a big deal to him.  At this point, I saw Monkey Joe enter the room.  Collin did not see him.  I moved closer to Collin in case this was going to go really bad.  Monkey Joe went to the other side of the table where Collin was and then he saw him......and started to wave his hand at Monkey Joe and then say "Hi" really loud.  Phew!!!!!  So far, so good.  Monkey Joe came over to Collin eventually, and he gave him a "high five".  He then started to sing "Happy Birthday" to Monkey Joe and started to laugh.  He then followed him around the room laughing and pointing at him.  I guess he is over his Monkey Joe fears.  Yeah Collin!!!!  I now wonder if he will continue to talk about his birthday party being at Monkey Joe's.  Seeing it actually happen for someone else showed me that it would not be too bad if we did end up having it there.  It's not my favorite idea but his birthday party is not about me and where I want to go, right?

Here he is with Monkey Joe who is so tall that I could not get him and Collin together in too many pictures.  Oh, that's Colin H. next to him.  They played together the entire time yelling "Colin, over here" to each other.