They say that one of the best things about being a parent is being able to introduce your kid to the things you enjoyed in your own childhood. So when my son was a baby, I fed him pureed mangos, my favorite fruit. When he was three, I put on an episode of Sesame Street, since Big Bird had been my hero back in the day. And when he was five, we read Frog and Toad, my all-time favorite little kids’ book.
Unfortunately, my rosy vision of reliving my childhood was just that, a vision. My son spit up the mango, despises puppets of any kind and was, “meh,” over poor Frog and Toad.
So when I told him he was going to a waterpark for the first time, I wasn’t surprised when he balked.
“I don’t want to go; the rides will be too scary,” he said.
I reassured him that he didn’t have to ride anything he didn’t want to. I didn’t give him much time to ponder it, either. Before he knew it, we were pulling up into Aquatica in San Diego.
While I began to get excited over the prospect of going on these gorgeous water slides, my son began to fret. It was hot, the lines were long, and the concrete was burning the soles of our feet. After a short dip in the wave pool, I convinced him to try one of the water slides, Kiwi Curl. It could accommodate two riders in a dual tube. He was still fearful but said he’d try it.
His joyous face as we landed at the bottom of the slide said it all.
“I want to go again! Can we go again right now?” he begged with a wide grin.
Finally, I got my awesome parenting moment! It was great seeing him so excited and happy doing something I loved doing, too.
I have waterparks to thank for that.
While waterparks have the unique ability to provide such joy to families the world over, the obstacles they sometimes face are not insignificant. In this issue, Nate Traylor, our resident waterpark enthusiast, explores two such topics. The first, “Developing During the Drought,” describes the top three lessons learned by those building waterparks in water-strapped areas. The next, “How the Waterpark Capital of the World Solved its J-1 Housing Crisis,” details the unique experiment that finally provided a solution to the Dells’ growing housing problem. Hopefully, the takeaways provided in this issue will be of help to future waterpark developments.
And who knows? Maybe one of those future waterparks will be the place where my grown-up son can share his love of water slides with his own child.