Today I face one of my mommy nightmares. No, not the one where I lose my child in Disneyland and find them an hour later riding It's a Small World repeatedly.* We were invited to a birthday party where they are renting one of those behemoth inflatable slides. If this party were for a lesser friend, we would pull the old "drop the present and run" exercise and appease the kids with candy, puppies, and fireworks instead because that behemoth inflatable slide desperately makes me want to bail.
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| Sure, it looks all soft and bouncy and innocent. |
This is my kid's dream entertainment, which is my first clue that it is actually a death trap. The climbing ramp on the left usually has handles or some rope for the kids to grab to help them climb up. Here is where my crazy mom brain kicks in and tells me to wrap my children in my arms and run away with them. As I look at that ramp I picture one kid getting almost all the way to the top, falling backward, knocking all the kids behind him down like bowling pins, and breaking his neck on the way down in the process. (I am also positive it would be one of my kids.)
Here is where my husband calls a psychiatrist for me because he is convinced that I am neurotic and should not be trusted to care for children. That's OK though because at the same time I'm calling CPS on him because he is considering letting all of our children enter the slide of doom.
This paralyzing vision is the one I have when a slide like this is at one of our local bounce house places on level ground and is completely dry. Now, put it in someone's uneven backyard, soak the slide with water, and have wet kids drip all over the up ramp. My panic rises exponentially.
The scene at today's party will be slippery wet kids charging up a wet inclined plane and sliding down another. I will let my kids participate, but I will also be the helicopter mom who brought her swim suit and is following behind my children as they climb up the slide ensuring I am the human cushion who will break their fall in case they plummet to their death. Thankfully, everyone there will probably just think I am the really fun mom spending quality time with her kids at a great party.
I will let them think this. I will spend all day climbing up and down that slide. And I will pretend this is exactly how I dreamed of spending my afternoon.
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Thank you also for sticking around long enough to find out about the asterisk. *This actually happened to my brother at Disney World back the 1970s. Mom says they closed the park down and did not let anyone in or out of the park until my brother was found, an hour later, riding It's a Small World.
These things drive me nuts, too. :)
ReplyDeleteIt's enough to make some hairs turn grey.
DeleteNot to fuel your neurosis, but there've been a lot of reports about injuries from these things. Of course, there are lots of reports about injuries from playing kickball too. I guess that's just part of childhood? It's terrifying, either way.
ReplyDeleteNothing is safe! Especially those ball pits that have snakes waiting at the bottom. Yup, avoid those for sure.
DeleteI WAS ALWAYS THE REALLY "COOL" INVOLVED MOM ALSO ssshhh IT'S EASIER TO ENTER ACT WITH KIDS THEN ADULTS FOR ME BUT IT ALSO LET ME BE SAFETY OFFICER MY POOR KIDS :)) DON'T YOU GO AND HURT YOURSELF THOUGH I'LL BE WATCHING FOR THAT POST LOL
ReplyDeleteI definitely hang better with kids at parties than with adults. However, I hang out with the party food best of all.
DeleteI gotta say, I have a lot of fears, but that's never been one of them. Hmmm... I may have to rethink that now that you put those ideas in my head.
ReplyDeleteI trust all went well?
Your kids are old enough now that if you never had that fear, you probably never need it. Ball (4 years old) is the one whose life I feel is most in peril. I want her to grow up, but I don't want her to grow up.
DeleteI'm actually okay with the slide but NOT the bounce house, on the grounds that (in theory) the kids go one at a time in the slide, whereas the bounce house is all about ramming into each other, poking eyes out and delivering accidental kicks to the spine. That said, it's easy for me to say because I have no friends, nor do I allow my kids to have any, on the grounds that it's a nuisance to come up with excuses to avoid their death trap laden parties.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling your life is a lot easier without friends (I mean IRL, because I'll be your friend online).
DeleteAlthough I don't have many friends IRL either. It's my kids' social calendar that keeps us busy, not mine.
oh man - you sound like me. I also have a fear of little people...
ReplyDeletehttp://momfiatees.com/6/category/fears/1.html
You were scared as a child! I just want to give you a big hug and tell you it will be all OK.
DeleteI like your strategy of climbing up the slide with you kid to make sure they stay safe. But I would be too concerned that I would then be the one to fall causing a lot more damage to the kids behind me than if just my kid fell. Plus how am I supposed to eat birthday cake while climbing up that thing?
ReplyDeleteThanks for adding another level of neurosis to this that I hadn't quite made it to yet.
DeleteThat's it, I'm going to sit by the food table and eat until the whole affair is over.
Awesome--you've just instilled another paranoia in my already overly-psychotically-cautious Mommy brain ;)
ReplyDeleteSometimes I just want to wrap them all up in bubble wrap. And then I realize I survived so they'll probably turn out OK in spite of me.
DeleteYES, the slides scare me. We did a backyard party with the slide of doom that was slightly lopsided due to some sort of air leak or mis-distribution (hey! I just made up a word there) of air. I don't know if it was that or the giant trampoline with 20 kids jumping on it that gave me a near cardiac arrest that day, but I wanted to cut and run. Cover every limb with one of those inflatable water wing things. ;)
ReplyDeleteWater wings or bubble wrap. Yes, I think you are on to something!
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