I’ve been wanting to take E to the Jay Peak Pump House for awhile, but I was unsure about cost, driving distance, etc. The other day, Nissa at BVTMomsBlog had a great post (here) listing some ideas for local indoor fun. The Pump House was on the list, and I just had to try it out! I checked the rates on the website and found out that E would be free (ages 3 and under), and I would only have to pay the $10 “supervision” rate. Seriously. Ten dollars to go to a water park for a day. You can’t beat it!
The play area for the younger kids is wonderful – mini waterslides, water guns, fountains, a huge bucket of water that dumps over the play structure, a la Typhoon Lagoon at Disney. There are so many ways that the kids can interact with the water.
E was a little nervous at first. She spent the first hour staying by my side and taking it all in. We finally went up on the play structure together, but one drenching soak from the big bucket had us moving back to the wading pool. She was a little startled, but we laughed it off. When she’s a little older, I think she’ll love it. But, for now, the yellow “baby” waterslide is perfect. She watched and waited for a lull in the crowd of kids lining up to get on the yellow slide.
I asked her if she wanted me to take her to it. She said, “No, Mama. I do this by myself.” She had clearly spent the last half hour scoping out the scene and thinking about how she was going to tackle that amazing yellow slide. After she got the hang of it, she jumped right in line with other kids who were now flocking back to the main attraction. She took her time, even as some kids pushed her aside and flew past down the slide. She was unfazed (thank you, day care!). She patiently waited her turn.
One little girl who was older led her to the slide and helped her up the stairs, letting E go first. The girl looked up at her father who gave her a happy nod of approval. Every other child who flew past E was being chased by a mother yelling, “Wait your turn!” I silently thanked God for a positive experience with parents who were involved and paying attention. Kids will be kids. We didn’t mind waiting, but it was nice to see parents trying to simply make their kids more aware of the younger ones.
E sat down at the top of the slide, and though there was a line a mile long behind her, she sat for a minute to throw her arms in the air, look to the skies, and say, “Ready! Set! GO!!” Everyone else around her faded into the distance, into a garbled sea of splashes, laughter, and chatter. And in her own, little, secret space, she quietly stole her own little moment of sunshine. This is me. Waiting, watching, sneaking, then carefully being happy when I feel it’s safe to do so. And this is Mark. Not afraid to try something new, but waiting and studying every move, planning how he will do it until just the right moment, and doing it skillfully, perfectly, without fear.
This was really the first time I saw her interacting with a large group of kids in a public setting, and to see mine and Mark’s personalities pop up in a very social way was amazing. She has learned most of her social interaction through day care, so I think I expected that she would just act like the other kids. This “nature vs. nurture” thing blows my mind.
Before I knew it, she was comfortable running to each activity, getting drenched. A diaper change didn’t deter her. The entire time I was changing her, she kept asking, “We go back waterpark? We play in water more?” Sure, why not!? We stayed until dinner time and ate a light dinner at the pizza shop off the lobby.
I don’t know what it was about this day – the fact that we got to play in the water, that it was 84 degrees inside, or that the entire place felt like a Disney park from my childhood. It was by far one of the best days of my life. I was relaxed, playing in the water, with my little girl, in the middle of February, after a long winter of too-cold days and snow storms.
It didn’t matter that changing clothes in the bathroom stall with a 2-year-old was traumatic for both of us. She put her hands on the toilet seat and smiled at me, knowing I would scream, “NooOOOooo!! Err-mah-gahd!! Germs!” She found the “override” button for the auto-flush toilet which triggered a very “splashy” toilet to spew water 10 feet in the air, in a 2-foot by 3-foot stall, causing me to press my barely-clothed body against the side of the stall and scream, “NooOOOooo!!!” again.
It didn’t matter that I had to put both of our bare, clean feet on the floor of a public bathroom, even though it caused me to squirm and cringe like I was walking through snakes. Or that, at some point, the baby wipes must have fallen out of our bag, and I ended up having to use a spare diaper to wipe down a poop-covered toddler who was using one of my favorite dresses as a changing pad (gah, I always forget that thing!).
It didn’t matter that… that diaper ended up not being a “spare” diaper, and I had to take an un-diapered, un-potty trained toddler to a restaurant where she drank an entire bottle of apple juice then put her in her car seat for an hour-long ride home.
It didn’t even matter that… she said she “spilled” her juice in the car, that she wanted to stop at “(Old) McDonalds (House)” to use the bathroom, and that she could definitely wait 3 miles until we got there. But what she actually meant was that she had peed through 5 layers of clothing and her car seat cover.
And I didn’t even mind that we ended up having to stop at Dunkin’ Donuts instead to change my toddler (and let her stand barefoot in another public restroom, because we lost her socks), while I dried her pants under the high-powered hand dryer. She thought this was hilarious, and laughed so loud each time I turned on the dryer that I thought she was going to hurt herself.
And I even calmly laughed (because, it was just downright hilarious) when I finally got her dressed again and brought her to the counter to get a water, and the guy said, “What can I get for you?” and she sang in the loudest and highest pitched opera voice I had ever heard in all my years, “I’D LIIIIIKE A DOOOOONUT!!” The guy stared back and said in a deadpan tone, “What kinda donut?” She responded with the song of our people, “ONE WITH FROOOOOSTING!!”
We had our rough moments, but it was worth every minute to have a little summer break after a long winter!
We got home, and she gave me a big hug and said, “Thank you, Mommy. I had fun playing in the water with you!” I gave her a bath to wash off the chlorine and bathroom germs, and Mark put her to bed. She cried to go back to the water park but once in her crib, she fell right to sleep. Sweet dreams, bubby! We’ll have more fun tomorrow!
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E also wrote a new song on the road trip. She was inspired by a tree lit with Christmas lights outside of a restaurant. It goes like this:
"Oh, Christmas tree! You are so pretty!!
Christmas tree! You are so beautiful... ... to me!
Oh, Christmas tree! Would you like a donut?
Oh, Christmas tree! Would you like a donut?
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