What's extreme to a 6 month old?

Over the past two weekends, Sue and I introduced Cruz to two new activities. With one, he seemed rather nonplussed right from the start. With the other, he initially was crying and uncomfortable.

Last weekend, when his aunties were over, we decided to have Cruz try the swings in a playground that's down the street from our house. As you can see by his expression, Cruz was less than impressed. I even tried to make things more "extreme," by pushing him progressively harder until he was making a pretty big arc (yes, I am a pediatrician...). He did, uh, start having a nervous expression and began trembling, but Cruz, true to his tough guy name, didn't even cry.


He did shed a tear or two when we took him swimming. Inspired by a neighbor down the street with a similarly aged kid, we decided to take Cruz to our nearby public pool. He was probably the youngest by at least a year. When his body first began to get submerged, he started to whine in protest. When I started to move him around, Superman-style, he started to cry.

We would later realize that he was mainly complaining about him being cold. But once he got used to it, he once again seemed to take his nonplussed expression and didn't seem to mind. I wouldn't go so far as to say he enjoyed it. Evidently swimming isn't extreme enough either.