Little Daredevil

She feels the need. The need...for speed.

Ainsley might be afraid of dark places and loud noises and any combination thereof, but she sure isn't afraid of heights or the pull of gravity.

Friday I had a day off, a day to recover from the hell of being the technology setter-upper for a 3-day teacher workshop. Seeing as how we've had highs in the upper 90s for a week now, I thought Friday would be the perfect day to take my little one to Sunlite Pool, a very large pool/amusement park in Cincinnati.

We started off with Ains's favorite aquatic event, which looks like this: jump off the edge of a pool, paddle to the ladder, repeat. And repeat. And repeat some more. Which is great fun for her, but not so much for her responsible adult in attendance.

Pretty soon, though, she spied the very tall slide in the middle of the pool with a rather scary-looking ladder. The slide throws you up in the air at the end, and you land in about 3 feet of water. Ainsley is very tall for her age, but when we paddled over to that part of the pool to investigate, the water came up to her neck. Given confidence by her swimmies, she said she really wanted to ride it; given that I saw no signs with a height restriction, I told her to go for it. As high up as that thing was, and as fast as kids were propelling into the water, I fully expected her to chicken out.

Chicken out she did not. She looked terrified on the way down, but as soon as she hit the water she laughed and said she wanted to do it again. And then again. And before I knew it, she had spent almost an hour zooming down the slide.

She asked if there were any other slides in the park. As it so happens, Sunlite Pool has two "Zoom Flumes", which are your typical waterpark body slides. I loved them eventually as a kid, but it took some talking into by my sister to get me on them the first time as they start off really high and spit you into the water fast enough to knock you under. You don't have to be very tall to meet the height requirement for these slides, so I agreed to give them a shot.

As we kept climbing and climbing the steps to the beginning of the flumes, I gave Ains every opportunity to ditch. I showed her how high we were going. I pointed out how fast the people were coming down. I told her how, if she laid down, the water would be around her face. I showed her how people went under water at the end and made sure she knew she'd have to hold her breath and raise herself out of the water. With every precaution, she just said, "Yay! I'm so excited!"

When it was her turn, I stood behind her, assuring her I would be right behind her and making sure she knew not to wander off without me. I asked one more time, "Are you sure you want to do this?" Before I knew it, the lifeguard gave her the OK to go and off she went.

That may have been the longest 30 seconds of my life as I waited for my own turn. I could barely focus on my own rush down the slide; I half thought I would meet her somewhere down there, holding on to the edge for dear life, refusing to ride it out the rest of the way.

I shot into the water, fixed the inevitable wedgie that comes from water slides, and looked up to see Ains jumping up and down with glee. "That's the bestest thing ever! I want to do it again!"

We rode both of their giant water slides in a constant rotation for the next 2 hours. She didn't mind waiting in the 15-minute-long line each time. And she told me that she was laying down the whole way each trip because she had figured out it made her go faster.

We eventually stopped for refreshments, and she wanted to go back to the first slide in the middle of the pool for a while. She begged me to do that one with her, too, and when I was on the top of that thing I actually got nervous. That sucker sits way above the pool and goes down in one steep swoop with little or no ledge to make you feel secure. And you go fast. I had dismissed it as a kiddie slide while she was doing it, but it made my heart race more than the "adult" flumes. I had a new admiration for her bravery after that one.

She wants to go back next year and ride the innertube slide that she was too short for this year. And she's already asking to go to King's Island's waterpark, which she sees advertised on TV and which has slides that look "superfast."

So this little thing who was afraid of hair dryers and exhaust fans for 3 1/2 years because of the noise, who nearly went into a conniption on the Dinosaur ride, and who has been driven to tears before for fear of automatically flushing toilets, has a thing for fast-moving, free-falling rides. Go figure.

I guess she gets it from me. As a kid, I would ride anything; the faster and loopier and scarier, the better. I couldn't wait to be tall enough to ride The Beast, King's Island's premier coaster at the time, and never met a carnival ride I didn't like. (Even the "iffy" ones run by 3-toothed mutant carnies who smelled like stale beer.) In fact, the only ride I've ever been on that I refuse to ride again is the Drop Zone ride, that lovely free-fall ride that was recently shut down due to a design flaw in a similar ride that made a cable snap and amputate a young girl's feet. Hubby, on the other hand, doesn't have the stomach for many rides and prefers sitting a lot of them out.

I was so proud of my brave little speed demon. I know we'll have to have some serious conversations when she starts driving, but for now I am content to let her experience the relatively safe world of roller coasters and water slides for her adrenaline rushes and speed fixes.

Of course, her bravery has a down side. She spent a couple of hours on Saturday watching Arachnophobia on cable with her dad. I started to turn it off, 'cause, you know, spiders send me into panic attacks. But she begged to watch it, and everytime a scene with a spider ended (and this happened too much for me; I bailed out of the room) she asked when the spiders were going to come back. She seemed to...enjoy them. She was even...laughing.

She does not get that from me.