Pump it up fun!

This weekend was a lot of fun, but I am sore.  Five years ago the story that goes with that would have been completely different … This past weekend however involved a lot of kids and inflated playhouses.  Yep, we went to one of those party places that have the huge slides, obstacle courses and this one had a basketball court. As I’ve said before we have an 8 year old (T), an 18 month old (G) and a 2 month old (S).  So of course ‘T’ had a blast and goes there at least once a summer with his daycare.  He made a quick friend, as you do at that age, and was sweaty in five minutes.  I don’t think I saw him again until pizza time.  We didn’t know how ‘G’ would take it though. Would she be shy and scared?  There were a lot of people there and she is not exposed to that very often.  We decided to ease her into the whole bouncy world (aka unstable ground) by starting off in the basketball court.  I climbed in with her and bounced her around while she was on her hands and knees not yet sure about her balance on this weird moving floor.  Still, the whole time she wore a huge smile!  I think she decided she wanted to explore some more and crawled to the netted opening and shot right thru.  ‘G’ toddled around the center until she came to this huge slide that must have looked like a mountain to her.  For a while she just stood at the bottom and stared in amazement at the kids coming at her at blazing speeds, huge smiles on their faces.  One of the other dads was the first to test the waters; he and his son climbed to the top and came down.   ‘G’ saw this and just started her point and grunt (her communication method to me saying “my turn”).  Hesitant I picked her up and started up the foam steps to the top, approximately 20 ft in the air.  I could feel the anticipation in her body as she couldn’t wait to see what would happen next.  She sat on my lap and away we went…  The look on her face at the bottom was one of sheer excitement/amazement.  I had one of those “daddy” moments realizing that I had just made my little girl’s day, not to mention I had quite a bit of fun.  After 20 plus more trips to the top, half way thru ‘G’ started climbing herself, I was physically exhausted, full of happy emotion!  We moved on to the obstacle course which provided more smiling excitement but not like that slide.  This weekend wasn’t one of the complicated days, but it was one of the sweetest yet!!!