Screaming can be fun!

[liralen]

We went to the new Longmont Recreation Center last night and had a blast.

They have family dressing rooms, so a squirmy near two-year-old can get undressed, stuffed into his swim diaper, and then run around, stomping puddles from the shower while his parents got dressed.

Then we hit the kid pool, which is 0'0" at the shallowest end to 3' deep. The shallow end is gradual, like a lake beach, with roughed up floor for good traction. Jet loved it and started running before he figured out there's more drag in the water than in the air. He picked himself up a lot. He knew, already, to hold his breath when underwater, and never panicked when he did fall down, instead, he would grin hugely when he got back up and would start running again. I was pretty impressed that in less than half an hour, he was running through the water with ease when he'd started without any experience at all.

He also managed to lure an eight-year-old boy, the only other person in the pool when we first arrived, into not just playing with him but even giving him all the toys that he'd found while at the pool! Jet ended up with all three things the boy had found. Wow. He did, finally, give them back to the kid, but made the kid feel badly enough that the kid gave him one of them to keep.

There are moments when I wonder if I should have named Jet "Miles" instead...

The three of us got on one of the floaters and went down the huge, wide tube slide that goes out, around the corner of the building and then back in to dump us out into the deeper end of the pool. We did the slide just fine, but when we hit the bottom, we had a huge amount of momentum and all got tumbled out of the float! We all hit the water tumbling, and I managed to be first up, turned around, and there was Jet, head out of the water, looking around, a little concerned, as there was no sight of John! John was holding him out of the water! When I didn't see John come up, I took Jet, and that's when John surface. Whew. Smart dad. Turns out the currents were so that John couldn't get up without his hands, so he just held Jet up until I took him.

Jet looked mildly concerned about the whole experience, but when I grinned at him, he grinned back. But, after that, John and I went down the slides by ourselves. There was a skinny tube slide as well, that went through three loops where the big one went around one. Both are pitch dark inside them. I was a little scared of the skinny one, but I finally found myself two-stories up, getting into the skinny tube.

Whee!! It was really crazy going through the pitch-blackness and getting swirled around and around. It was only at the end that I saw light and by then I was going fast enough that the end was upon me very, very quickly. By the time I got dumped out into the water, I was dizzy and couldn't figure out which way was which for a moment. Finally, I just stood up and looked and worked my way back to the shallows. Wow.

It's like being able to go to a water park, a weight room, an aerobics center, a climbing park (they actually have climbing walls, too), and basketball and squash court all in one, for just $3 a visit (with our corporate discount). Plus, Jet's free until he's two!

I think we're going to go on a regular basis, now that's it's winter and it's harder to do things outside on a frequent basis.

And when we were done, the three of us went and soaked in the hot tub for a while, until we were warmed through and Jet looked kind of dreamy. Then we all showered and went across the street to Deli Cioso's, a fine, fast Mexican food restaurant with yummy things. Jet ate an entire side and a half of Mexican rice, drank his juice box, and then nibbled on a honey slathered sopapilla. The trick was keeping him away for the drive home.

He then had the best night he's had in a month. Yay for exercise!!