water park with 2-year-olds

Technically Seth is four; but he's at about the same developmental level as Gavin, his two-year-old cousin. I took both Seth and Gavin to H2Oasis today (indoor water park). I wish SO badly that I had taken my camera to video the whole outing! Gavin was cracking me up the entire drive. Almost as soon as he got in the van, he noticed that our ceiling light was broken. He told me that Uncle Jason needed to fix it :-) I laughed for a good mile over that one! Both boys were really excited about going swimming. Gavin and I had both forgotten that he HATES H2Oasis! But we both remembered as soon as he walked in the door: he started walking backwards, saying "I don't like it! I don't like it!" I picked him up and carried him to the bench to take our shoes off, and then I helped him use the restroom. Every time I put him down to walk, he tried to sit down so that he didn't have to go any farther.

"Don't you want to go swimming, Gavin?"

"No, I want to go to Mommy."

He did walk around in the water a little bit and sat down in the water when Seth and I sat down. We sang "Jesus Loves Me" to try to make him more comfortable, but it didn't work. I held him and went down the slide with him, but I'm pretty sure that was my biggest mistake :-) He did enjoy standing at the bottom of the slide, holding on to a pole, cheering for Seth to go down the slide. I'll have to remember that if we get to go again.

I didn't want to traumatize the sweet boy, so we only stayed about 40 minutes. I told the boys it was time to go home, and Gavin said he wanted to come to our house to eat his lunch and watch "Signing Time." That was a GREAT idea so that the end of our adventure would be a happy memory for Gavin :-) While we were putting our shoes on to leave the water park, Gavin told me that he had fun (an obvious untruth, but what good manners!). And then when we were walking out the door, he told the lady at the front desk, "Good-bye! I had fun!" He made her day, the little charmer!

I'm counting that trip a success because: 1. no one got hurt, 2. Gavin didn't cry so much that he threw up, 3. both boys ate all their lunch, 4. we ended with a smile, and 5. I still made it to my sign language class on time :-)