The almost not quite but still scary day

We went to Water World yesterday. There are no pictures, something you should all be thankful for. No one wants to see me in a bathing suit. Except maybe hubby.

Hubby's cousin invited us to go with her- she doesn't have small children anymore, but she loves riding water slides. So she called me up and asked to take us. And of course, I said yes. A decision I regretted the moment she started talking about the crazy rides she planned on taking us on. *gulp* I am not the adventurous sort. At least in terms of going on scary rides, heights, things that spin, and pretty much anything you'd find at an amusement park. Let's put it this way- "It's a small world" is my favorite ride- EVER.

However, God gifted us with two little daredevils. An important rite of passage in our family has been when our girls are tall enough to ride rollercoasters. Me, I'm clinging to the fact that my littlest is still not tall enough (barely) to ride. Because she's my excuse not to go. You know, "sorry, I couldn't possibly, I need to stay with the little one." However, she's inching taller and each year, is able to ride scarier and scarier rides.

So I find myself doing more daring things, riding scary(ish) rides, and trying to encourage my girls to be brave where I am not.

Back to the water park. The kids wanted to start off with a scary, wedgie-inducing ride that I knew would have me completely freaking out, but I'd have to do it or else the little one couldn't go. Fortunately, our cousin decided that she wanted to see how well the kids did on less scary rides because she'd never seen them swim before. PHEW! That bullet dodged.

We rode a number of rides, all the while planning on when we'd do the scary ones. They laughed at my love for the lazy river, but after lunch, went on anyway. Which really meant I owed it to them to do the scary ones, right? We passed one I'd rode at another park about a year ago. Another ride I'd prefer not to do, but have done multiple times because the little one needed me with her. So even though I HATE this slide, I'd resigned myself to doing it and all the other scary slides. The kids talked about riding it, but then they saw THE BIG ONE. I'm talking death-defying, scary, I don't know why they have this stupid slide, and why millions of people haven't DIED on it, but I'm sure I will be the first. So we headed toward it.

Which was when the skies got dark, the clouds rolled in, and little raindrops began falling. We decided to let the little one ride a kiddie slide to see if the storm would blow over. We discovered that the kiddie pool is thousands of degrees warmer than the other pools, which made me and the little one want to stay there because it had gotten a lot colder all of a sudden. Our cousin and older daughter were still plotting about riding THE BIG ONE.

And then we saw it. Lightning streaking across the sky, which caused the lifeguard whistles to shriek the blessed sound- everyone out of the water.

We went back to our covered area to wait out the storm. An hour later, the storm had not subsided, they closed the park, and we went home bearing rain checks for another day of fun.

Bullet dodged.

I had a great day, despite being nervous about all the scary rides to come, and I didn't have to go on a single ride I didn't want to. That said, we have in our possession passes to go on another day. And knowing my kids, I'm not sure I'm going to get so lucky next time.

How do you deal with having kids who need you to do things that scare you?