How We Torture Our Child on a Sunny Saturday

Yesterday was one of those perfect Minnesota summer Saturdays.  About 82 degrees, sunny, and very little humidity.  The “little humidity” part doesn’t happen that frequently in August, and it was absolutely gorgeous out. 

We were trying to think of something really fun and new for Coops, and we remembered hearing about the St. Louis Park Splash Pad, which is a water park in a quiet little neighborhood not far outside of Minneapolis.  Well, it’s a “water park” in a toddler or small human sense, as it’s mostly various sprinkler heads and bubblers.

So, we slathered the boy with sunscreen, threw a “swim diaper” and some trunks on him, and headed out.  After a ride that took forever because I had difficulty following the directions I got from Mapquest, we finally found the place.  I should mention that it was, indeed, my difficulty with the directions, not the fault of Mapquest in any way.

The park is very cool.  It’s tree-shaded and relatively quiet..well…except for all of the screaming children, that is.  There is the actual splash pad, and then a “regular” park.  There were quite a few folks there, but it wasn’t crazy crowded….just perfect, actually.

We tried to psych Coops up by telling him how much fun it was going to be, though he didn’t look convinced and repeatedly told us he wasn’t interested.  We started off slow by showing him this tiny little bubbling brook kinda thing that was low to the ground and not very scary.  He wasn’t having it.  He wouldn’t even put his hands by it.  We showed him all the other kids having fun.  No go.  We cajoled, bribed, persuaded, begged, and bribed some more.  Still the head shaking in the negative.

I finally told Doug to just pick him up and walk under a sprinkler.  It was time for induction by fire…or water, as the case may be. 

The result?  Screaming, monkey-clinging anger and terror all mixed into one tiny 2 year old tantrum craziness.

See for yourself…

We figured that was enough “fun” for one morning, so we took him to the “regular” playground (actually more upon his insistence than it being our own idea) and tortured him further by making him slide down this slide with D.Jones…

Actually the slide was a bit more successful.  He said he liked it, but when we asked if he wanted to go down again, he said “no” a little too quickly.

He played for a little while, hopefully forgetting how mean we were to him at the Splash Pad, and then we called it a day.  That was enough torture, I suppose.  He’ll probably have nightmares for a week or need some sort of aqua therapy later in life.  I guess we’ll probably offer to pay for that when the time comes…