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June 02, 2005

Tales From the WildChild

We had a great time at Silver Dollar City, though I think WildChild was more impressed with the hotel than the theme park. He now insists he wants to live in a hotel....in large part I suspect, because it had an indoor pool. We'd gotten him his first real life vest, and he quickly discovered he could 'swim' on his own. "Look at Me!" he squealed. "I swimming! All by myself!" Both nights we were there, he paddled around in the pool until his little arms & legs just couldn't move anymore.

He rode his first adult roller coaster, Thunderation, and got a big kick out of it...except the part where it went into a sharp downward spiral. We rode the train, the carousel, the boat ride through the shooting gallery and the balloon ride. He played in the enormous treehouse and sandboxes. He & I went to the petting zoo, where he chased goats, a huge rabbit and some chickens around for a while.

He & I sat in the observation area while my daughter & Mike rode the PowderKeg....an interminable wait of about 1 hour & 45 minutes. He's at that 'Why?' stage, so the first hour was spent with his inumerable questions and his loud and amusingly accurate observations about the people around us. Like "Why that lady spill her Coke? Look Ma! It's making a river. A Coke river. Now it's a lake. A Coke lake! Why that Coke make a lake?"

And the best one: An employee came by with a broom & dustpan, sweeping up trash. "Why that man look so grumpy? Why he grumpy Ma? What's he doing?" He did in fact look very grumpy....even more so after WildChild's remarks. I cracked up.

Then he got bored, and the 'I'm hungry. I'm thirsty. I want to leave now' started. He was working up a pretty good hissy fit until I finally convinced him to sit in my lap for a few minutes. He went soundly to sleep in about 5 seconds. He even slept through some freaking little kid tripping over my ankles. (Served the little bastard right. That was the 3rd time he'd stepped on me.)

The nap perked WildChild right up, and we continued to have a blast. On the way out, we stopped in one of the gift shops and he bought a harmonica....which he played and played. On the way home, he'd play a little riff then sing "1, 2, 3", another riff "4, 5, 6", another riff and then he'd start all over again.

Cracked me up.

Posted by Rita at June 2, 2005 09:46 AM

Comments

Professional commedians are often a poor substitute for the real comedy that is at large in the world around us. Camron keeps me laughing nearly every day, but oddly enough, his Mom and Grandparents just look perpetually tired (I guess that too much can be enough). Being able to walk away after the punch-line must give me a clarity that they lack.

Posted by: kenneth at June 2, 2005 11:10 AM

Zac received one as a gift from his "Prima", cousin, and calls it "Mi Musica!" My music! As soon as he was shown how it was to be used, he proceeded to give several stellar encore performances with punctuations for "Applauso!" The intensity with which he played was an amazing thing to witness, in a then, 2 and 1/2 year old child. Needless to say the "Musica" has been lost and sadly will remain so.

Posted by: Bill at June 2, 2005 04:26 PM

Little boys can wear you out in a hurry, that's for sure. But they're so much fun!

He & Mike did a harmonica duet after we got home. It was quite the show. The harmonica isn't nearly as loud & annoying as, say, the electronic guitar that someone got him. A 'favor' I hope to repay someday. You know, they make these really cool electronic drum sets nowdays. Heh.

Posted by: Rita [TypeKey Profile Page] at June 3, 2005 07:27 AM

So what did they think of Powderkeg?

Posted by: Keith at June 3, 2005 08:35 AM

They said it was great! Though if they'd known the wait was going to be that long, they prolly wouldn't have ridden it.

It was funny. The ride pauses by the observation area before the first big acceleration. Mike & my daughter were turned waving at us. Since I'd been watching the ride for almost 2 hours, I was yelling "No! No! Lean back! Lean back!" They didn't hear me in time. Trying to turn back into your seat while accelerating 0-60 in about 3 seconds is apparently rather difficult. Heh.

The funniest though was the dumbasses who used that pause to raise their hands in the air. I had no idea arms could bend in that direction. lol

Posted by: Rita [TypeKey Profile Page] at June 3, 2005 08:44 AM

He has one of those as well, but the damn batteries keep disappearing.

Posted by: Bill at June 3, 2005 10:35 AM