My friend invited Wes and me to an “Active Indoor Playground” place. Wes is two years old and I’ve been thinking for a while that he might be starting to get to the age where he’d like to run and jump and climb in a place like this. I THOUGHT he’d like it, but I wasn’t sure. So I’m glad I had other people to go with to enjoy the experience with (thanks, Angela!).

Picture a warehouse filled with inflatable slides and bounce houses with kids running around like they were just shot in the arm with a dose of pure sugar and you get a pretty good idea what the place is like.

At first Wes seemed a little overwhelmed by the other kids and all the commotion. He didn’t want to get onto any of the inflatable things, or if he got on, he got right back off again. After about half an hour I took him to the “2 & Under” area where he contentedly played with this toy for over twenty minutes. When Wes wants to, he has a really good attention span.

He also liked the tunnel.

What finally broke Wes out of his shell was this, which I call “The Leviathan Slide.” It was the biggest, baddest, scariest (in my opinion) slide to go down in all the joint. And, of course, it was Wesley’s favorite.

(That is NOT Wes standing there, by the way. That kid is much taller than Wes.)

I have to give props to my friend Angela because she willingly carried Wes to the top of this slide and went down with him the first time so he could experience it. And you should have seen the smile of joy on his face as he came down. When they hit the bottom, he instantly turned around and started trying to climb back up.

I took Wes up the next time. The stairs are too hard for him to climb on his own, so I had to carry him in one arm and cling to the side rope with the other to keep myself from falling backwards. This slide is about two stories tall! And steep! And OK, I’m in decent physical condition, even pregnant, but I was sweating by the time I got to the top.

And THEN I was sweating even more when I got to the top and looked down the slide. This slide is no joke! I’m scared of heights, and if Wes weren’t so keen on going down it, I may not have. I asked him if he wanted to go and he clapped and made the sign for “go”, so I sucked up my fear and we went.

Immediately he jumped up and signed “more” and said “moh!” and off we went again and again. I finally had to distract him someplace else because I was getting exhausted! Angela took photos of him and me coming down the slide that I can post later.

After that, Wes was a wild man in the warehouse. Nothing daunted him.

Here he is climbing up and going down a MUCH smaller slide, with only a little help from me and a push at the top.

PART 1: Climbing Up

PART 2: Going Down

After two hours I was totally spent. And Wes had fun. I think we’ll go back again sometime.