Sesame Place Weekend

We've known since April that Sasha would be starting school this week.  And because we figured it will be a difficult adjustment, we decided to do something special for him on Labor Day weekend. We were the best parents ever: we took him to a theme park.  Sesame Place, to be specific, located just outside of Trenton, New Jersey.

Sasha had an absolute blast.  The place is basically a water park with lots of water slides, pools, and things that squirt water. They must hold the world record for The Most Inventive Ways to Get People Wet.  Sprinkling flowers, water wheels, gurgling fountains, buckets that dump water on you, intentionally leaky hoses, even a giant squirting rubber ducky.  Here's the Bub waiting for his turn down the slide with Mama. (I didn't think a life vest could be so cute.)  He didn't seem to mind at all the hour-long wait for the 9-second ride.  In fact, he wanted to immediately wait in another incredibly long line to go on a different slide, but we persuaded him to try something without a line.

 

He was also excited to see Elmo and Murray in person.  And he desperately wanted to go in the fake Sesame Street buildings facade, though ultimately he settled for getting Big Bird's mail.

 

We spent much of the second day in the toddler pools.  Amazing how much fun one foot of water can be.  Sasha loved to show off his "swimming," pulling himself around by his arms while his legs floated.  Around and around a sprinkling archway, he pretended to be Iron Man, then a mermaid, then we were all a mermaid family.  The two bigger mermaids preferred to sit on the edge of the pool, but that was fine with Sasha as long as we continued to be impressed by his amazing swimming abilities.

Of course, we made a couple of rookie mistakes. Like FORGETTING TO TAKE THE STROLLER. Major oversight.  Also, we foolishly thought Sasha would sleep well after his days playing in the water and sun.  Wrong.  He partied like a rock star at the hotel, staying up late and getting up early.

The trip was pretty much exactly what we hoped for.  A theme park bonanza followed by an extra day spent in the hotel pool, where Sasha spent many hours being held above water by one of us or by a little white buoy. He shed tears in the car when he realized that we were going home to Brooklyn and not back to Sesame Place-- or the hotel.  Sad, yes, but evidence that he had tons of fun.