A morning of water sliding!

Last Friday I endured an entire day of soft play (I think a medal might be in order here…) I took the kids on two separate play dates to two separate venues morning and afternoon and whilst it was lovely to catch up with friends, enough was enough come Saturday and I put my thinking cap on for some alternative family entertainment…

…Which is how we came to finally dig out the old swimwear and head off to the fabulous leisure pool at Guildford Spectrum which has no less than five big slides (three flumes) plus two little toddler versions too. It had been so long since we had last been swimming that I was shocked to see that JJ’s costume was a size 18-24 months (he’s 4 and a half!). Not that we haven’t been in water since that time but I guess those cossies are pretty stretchy and there’s not much of him! On the other hand EJ was on the big side for his 12-18 month costume (at 19 months) being much more of a little chubby-thighed baby than his brother ever was, so we detoured to Sainsburys on our way to the pool and bought a new costume and goggles for JJ and a cute baby swim nappy for EJ to wear under JJ’s old suit.

I had been prepared to take the two of them on my own if the hubster had not been available for whatever reason, but thank goodness he was there as the changing, both before and after, was quite tricky. Trying to carry all shoes, clothes, coats and towels for myself and the children plus attempting to stop EJ from dashing off and launching himself back into dangerously deep water would have been even more hair-raising on my own!

I admit this has been a long time coming as EJ has only been in a swimming pool once before and after his wonderful water birth I was so longing for him to be a water baby but there was just never the time or money for baby swimming sessions and I have to admit I’m not much of a swimmer myself and not particularly keen on stripping off in public places!

For this reason EJ was somewhat overwhelmed and intimidated by the situation to begin with – bearing in mind that it was pretty busy and noisy too on a Saturday morning. JJ was thrilled to be able to finally experience all the big slides though and frankly I barely saw him and his dad for most of the time we were there!

Fortunately soon EJ warmed up to the experience and after a few shocking head submersions he was launching himself down the mini-slides with gusto whilst trying to bat away anyone else who came up behind him!

In the end I even got to experience a couple of the flumes and big slides with JJ which was really good fun!

Afterwards we were all starving and the hubster treated us to a McDonalds.

All in all we had a brilliant family day together – plenty of magic moments – just a shame we have no photos as there was no way my new camera was going anywhere near a swimming pool!!

Linking up to Magic Moments over at the Oliver’s Mad House.