Half Birthday

August 9, 2007

I took a day of vacation today so that we could head to Wet N Wild water park in Greensboro for a full-day of fun in celebration of Katie's half birthday. We're unaware of any family that celebrates half birthdays, so this is unique fun for all of us. It's actually a great excuse to use a vacation day for some fun in August, a month usually too hot to do much of anything outside. In fact, on this day, the heat index in Raleigh was 113 degrees. I was slightly concerned about the heat and how it might effect us, but I counted on the fact that we'd be in the water all day. Kinda hard to suffer from heat exhaustion when you're soaking in water. That was my mindset, anyway.

This half birthday was very important to Katie as she's been excited just anticipating that she'll be "three-and-a-half." After she woke us in the morning, and we reminded her of her half birthday, she smiled widely and said "I'm going to stop pee-peeing (nocturnally, that is!) and I'm going to stop fussing." Sounded good to us!

Prior to stopping at our water park destination, we stopped by a house in Hillsborough to check out a dining room ensemble that Melissa had located on Craigslist. While Melissa and I came to terms with the owner, Katie accompanied her daughter to the backyard where they petted a Great Dane and a turtle.

Following our "we'll take it!," we resumed our trip. Most amazing to me was the fact that Katie was content to ride the entire trip - both ways - without music or tv. She happily rode along playing with a Happy Meal box and applying stickers to it. And as she rode, she sang softly. It was one of the most contentedness she's displayed in quite a while.

At the park, it was blistering hot. But, as I had hoped, we couldn't feel the heat because of our near constant immersion in the various pools. The only telltale indicator that the temperatures exceeded 100 degrees was that the pavement was heinously hot! Katie had a fine time playing in the kiddie pools, sliding down the kiddie water slides, riding with Melissa and I on a couple of "grown-up" rides, and eating ice cream, of course!

As usual, we closed down the park. At our Denny's dinner, Katie overheard a colorful character behind us. She stopped her drawing, laughed softly, and said "he talks funny." It made us laugh to hear her observations. Without a nap today and lots of activity, it didn't surprise us to hear her ask permission to go to sleep in the van. She always asks permission to go to sleep in the van. Since she asked politely, we consented, of course!

It was a great half birthday celebration. She wants to make the half birthday trip to the water park an annual tradition. Sounds good to me.