During a playgroup a few months ago at Karen O.’s house she introduced the kids to an inflatable moonwalk thing in her basement. Nathan so happened to be down there playing quietly when the air compressor that puffs the huge thing up started going. It scared Nathan so bad that he didn’t want to even continue to play in the basement for the rest of the day and he cried so hard. Poor thing!

So, today i figured enough time had passed and he’d be okay when we went to the “inflatable party zone”, a.k.a., Pump It Up. I was …….WRONG! I spent the whole morning trying to pump HIM up for the big activity. He seemed okay with it saying, “yeah, i want to play in the big balloons!” As soon as we walked in after registering and paying, he nearly made a beeline for the door. He got this look of panic on his face seeing all the large inflatables, kids running and bouncing around, and of course the noise of the air compressors holding everything up.

I gradually coaxed him into going into one of the little spaces that didn’t quite have a bouncy bottom platform to it but it was a little structure that you walked/crawled into and inside there were the bouncy walls and there were basketball hoops and little kickballs. He liked that….wasn’t scared because the floor was solid.

Then i asked him if he wanted to go back into the other play room where the really bouncy things were. He reluctantly said yes. I finally got the kid to go up one of the structures which consisted of a grueling hike on bouncy terrain going UPWARDS which met the top of a huge slide (think summer carnival slide). The whole way up the darn thing he’s saying “I can’t!” and i am assuring him, “yes, you can!” (goodness, if I can at almost 38 weeks pregnant, he certainly can!)

I remind him “remember the little engine that could?” He then starts to recite “i think i can, i think i can!” all while pulling himself up with all of his 27-pound strength to climb to the top. Meanwhile, we’re holding up the people behind us but i don’t care much at this point. It’s just good that he’s not throwing a fit by this time.

So we get to the top of the slide and i ask him if he is ready to go down and he says yes. So, i grab his hand and we SLIIIIIDE on down!! So much fun! But exhausting. I seriously would’ve loved to see how i looked coming down with my big ol’ belly! I guess it was Will’s first slide, huh? He ended up going up the slide again later with Erin to go and get Alexander who was sitting quietly at the top of the slide looking like he was waiting for his rescuer! Then, n8 and i went one more time to go and fetch Alexander (who yet again needed rescuing), but when we arrived at the top and i asked Alexander if he wanted to slide down with us, he replied with an emphatic, “yes!” then took off on his own!

I was so pooped after all this. I was sure my water was going to break or i was going to go into labor by lunchtime. Hmm….not today, at least. We’ll see about tomorrow.