The Water Park Incident

My summer is winding down. Being determined to cram in a few more 'fun' things with the kid, and get some more use out of our season pass, we spent Sunday at the water park, just him and me.As we pull in the parking lot, he waivered on the edge of sheer joy and total sadness.

He was torn between complete excitement to go down the slides and utter despair that our usual water park buddies weren't going to be coming.

Once we made it in to the park, I waivered on the edge of sheer panic and total shame. The water park is a hard place for me. I hate wearing a bathing suit. Hate. So, disgust at my own body is a common issue for me while we're there. The place is teeming with teens who have yet to have their metabolism take a nose-dive and haven't pushed a watermelon-sized child through their vaginas. Cute bodies in bikinis everywhere. Killer. Good times, good times.

We were there for 7 and a half minutes before the kid rubs sunblock in his eyes. Sigh. There went the next half hour! He frantically raked at his eyes, crying 'owie, owie!' and there was so little I could do, except remember when I had done the same thing last October while in Florida with some wonderful women, thus ruining my afternoon. I can only assume that the tendency to rub sunblock in ones eyes is genetic, and that I have cursed my son by bestowing upon him my genes.

Fun was obviously put on hold for a bit while we sat in the bathroom rinsing his eyes out. Maybe some people would consider that fun, I suppose. I am not one of those people.

He recovered, and decided he wanted to go to the wave pool. Let us pause for a WOOT WOOT moment!!!!! The wave pool is my favorite place there. Partially because it has the warmest water and partially because there are no colorful structures with obnoxious water spraying out of them.

After a gleeful time in the wave pool, we hit the kiddo slides. At one point he stopped and smiled at an elderly Asian man next to us, who spoke no English. The kid started laughing hysterically, and the man laughed back. I had a brief 'smiling really IS the universal language' moment and my heart was warmed. I experienced a moment of harmony. I liked it. Immediately turned around to see a mom accidentally run into a kid and knock him over. Less harmonious, but pretty funny. I liked it.

Then, I watched my kid run up the stairs to conquer the slide all by himself. He got halfway up the steps, then looked over his shoulder at me with the biggest, goofiest grin on his face. I had a brief 'my kid is totally happy right now, doing something completely on his own' moment. The beats of my heart alternated between complete euphoria in seeing his joy and utter despair in knowing he didn't need me to achieve said joy.

After a quick snack, him eating while pushing through pure exhaustion, we prepared to leave. I put him in dry clothes, and he promptly peed in them. Awesomeness. I no longer have emotions for potty accidents. There is no point to have emotions towards them. So I opt for the acronym coined by a friend: FFS (for fucks' sake). Yeah, pretty much sums that up.

Anyways, so he was in his wet pee clothes, I was in my wet bathing suit, and we headed to the bathroom as quickly as possible. Which means, it was inevitable that we would be stopped. And stopped we were. By a former student and her entire family. Sweet. There is nothing like chit chatting with a family from school while wearing a bathing suit. With my kid in pee clothes. I kept thinking to myself "Is this really happening?" The answer is yes, yes is was.

Made me look forward to school starting when I get to chat with students and parents while fully clothed. In clothes that don't have pee on them.

Best part about our water park visit? He fell asleep pretty much the second we walked in the door and napped for 4 hours. I was able to get past the sunblocked eyes, pee clothes, and parent conference in my bathing suit, and relish in my quiet freedom, fully clothed.