Tuesday Night Date

Last Tuesday night Aaron and I took the girls to the waterpark. After a good 30 minutes of playing 'Shark' in the lazy river (with Daddy as the shark chasing the 3 'mermaids', which is usually my role), we went over by the water slides and tried to get Katie to go down with Aaron. Before she was tall enough to go down, she really wanted to. But now that she can, she refuses to go down the water slides. I really think that if she would just go for it, she would love it and never want to get off of them. As Katie was refusing Aaron's attempts to get her to go with him, Sarah kept saying, "I'll go. I want to go down the slide!" So we went over to talk to the lifeguards and they said she wasn't tall enough, but she could take the swim test, and if she passed, she could go down. He showed us how far she had to swim and I wasn't sure if she could swim that far without stopping, but Aaron said, "Let's just let her try and see how she does." So we did and she swam like a little fish and had absolutely no problem going the distance. Now, granted, there is a really good current where they do the swim test, which I would imagine has helped lots of kids pass the swim test. But there is also a really good current when you come off of the slides too. Anyway, we were so proud of her and she was pretty proud of herself too. So she and Aaron quickly grabbed a two person raft, went up the stairs, and down the green slide. The first time she looked very happy and proud of herself and said, "That was a little scary, but it wasn't too bad." So off they went for a second try, but this time when they got to the top, she was having second thoughts, but Aaron put her on the raft anyway and down they came. When they hit the water, their raft turned over, and as Aaron was falling off of the raft, he grabbed Sarah, so they both went under. She was not happy about that at all, and was done with the slides for the night. We kept telling her how proud we were of her for swimming so well and passing the swim test and how brave she was for going down the slide. It didn't matter what we said though, she was done.

On Monday, we met Wendy, Von, and Travor at the waterpark and the boys wanted so badly for the girls to go down the slides with them. Katie was not interested at all, but Sarah kept saying she would go with them, and when they would get to the top of the stairs would change her mind--EVERYTIME--which happened at least 10 times. Thank goodness they were so patient with her though and never got upset with her at all. She even told Wendy and me she would go with us and we would take her up and always the same thing would happen at the top of the stairs. So as we were about to leave on Monday, I thought I would give it one last shot and bribed the girls telling them we would stop to get snow cones (which they LOVE!) on the way home if they would go down the body slides and they took the bait! Wendy, her boys and my girls all went up. Wendy said they both started to get nervous when it was their turn, but she told them to just practice sitting, and then gave them a ever so slight nudge and off they went. AND THEY BOTH LOVED IT! When Sarah climbed out of the pool, she said, "That was fun! I'm doing it again!" And off she went, and repeated almost the same words the next 20 times or so that she came down. And Katie was definitely feeling the same way. So Wendy and I became permanent fixtures at the edge of the pool beside the body slide for the next 30 minutes or so while they all had a blast going over and over and over. When we finally were able to drag them from the slides, we got snow cones on the way home and then came home to tell Daddy how brave they had been and how much fun they had discovering the joys of the body slide. However, there was a very severe side effect from all of the fun they had. This is what I found about an hour after we got home.

They were completely wiped out! They probably would have slept all night and I was tempted to let them, but we had people coming over for FHE.

So tonight when Katie started begging to go to the waterpark again, Aaron told her we could only go if she would pull her loose tooth out. I think he told her that because he thought she wouldn't do it, and honestly I didn't think she would either. And to begin with, she was upset that he told her that, but he began coaching her how to do it and within 10 minutes it was out. So off to the park we went. The girls were so excited for Aaron to see them go down the slides.

Katie proudly showing the reason we were at the waterpark.

Aaron wasn't as crazy about the body slide as the girls were, but he played along with the girls while I watched, and cheered, and took pictures. Then Katie asked if I would go down the green slide with her, which is the one with the raft. UGG! I didn't really want to, but I did since I wanted her to see how much fun it was. It was funny to hear her asking if I was scared on the way up and trying to comfort me by telling me how much fun it would be. She loved it, and I did too, except the end where you have to get off of the raft. I never did quite figure out how to get off of the raft without going under water, which I was trying really hard to avoid. But we all had a great time, and it was so much fun to watch them discover the fun of water slides!