David and I have been encouraging Davey to go down the “frog slide” at the waterpark all summer.  It’s a very small water slide.  You climb up about 4 steps and then go down.  At first he didn’t like the water that he had to slide through, but after he started walking through the mushroom that dropped 10 times as much water, I began to think he was being stubborn.  I always tell David that Davey gets that from him.  (David has some idea that I am stubborn though.)

The other day Davey had gone down the slide after David climbed up with him and set him down.  Davey went down, but he immediately stood up absolutely furious.  “I WAS SCARED!!! I WAS SCARED!!!”  He was crying and yelling.  (When he does his little square mouth cry, he looks like he did the minute he was born.)  The moms around started trying to console him while looking around for his mom.  They saw me and all started pointing Davey my way.  I picked him up and consoled him.  David had mysteriously disappeared.  That was the end of the frog slide for the day.

So then yesterday evening, Davey and I went for about an hour and a half before they closed.  There were not many people there and only a couple of kids were on the frog slide.  I took Davey to the slide and offered to put him on the tongue (slide part) so that he would not have to start from the top and go through the water.  He let me do this, and we did this about a dozen times.

Then came the cute little girl in the hot pink swimsuit.  She was six and had long blonde hair and big brown eyes.  She grinned at Davey every time she went down the slide.

Suddenly Davey was interested.  This sweet little girl took him up the steps and stepped aside each time to let him go first.   The next thing I know, he is flying down the slide, and then following the little girl around the side and back up the steps as fast as they can go.  Davey kept trying to hold her hand, or put his hand on her back to help her as she went up the stairs.  They played chase, they splashed each other, and they must have gone down that slide 50 times.  He went down on his bottom, he went down on his tummy (not strictly legal I don’t think), he went down on his side.  He was the slide master.

Too soon the little girl in the hot pink swimsuit had to leave.   Davey watched her walk away with her mom and 2 brothers.   He was kinda sad, so I got him an orange push-up to make it easier.  Soon he was ready to play again, and I wondered if he would get back on the slide.  He did.  He went right back to that slide and played on and around it until we had to go.

And that is how Davey mastered the slide.