Bounce!

RyanC was invited to a co-worker's daughter's two-year birthday party at Bounce , which is a place with giant inflatable playgrounds for kids. This is RyanC's first birthday party invitation so I took the Rebel XT dSLR along.

Here is the birthday cake with a little pony on it:


Ryan stuffed himself full with pepproni pizza before enjoying the wonderful cake:



Initially RyanC hesitated with these giant inflatable playgrounds. It took him some time before making a step after I plopped him into the toddler one. He stood still, afraid to move, for a few minutes while observing all these other big kids crash around. Suddenly an employee showed up and told those big kids to go to other playgrounds instead. It became less intimadating when only the toddlers are left. RyanC eventually became comfortable enough to enter the castle in this mario-like land with mushrooms & castle.


RyanC even warmed up to this little toddler girl who was there for the same party. He followed her around for a little bit and imitated her as she hopped and fell onto the floor intentionally. Later he saw her around an obstacle so he pointed at her and screeched, which is his way of saying "I see you!" but he scared the little girl instead.


RyanC also hugged this dwarf when I told him to go push the little blue guy. He also pushed the mushroom shown in the background but that one bounced back and smacked his face. The brave little guy didn't cry though. He hopped on the mushroom and pushed it onto the floor later.


After a while in the toddler playground, RyanC didn't want to play there anymore so I took him to this other obstacle course that was once filled with bigger kids earlier. They had just left for the giant slide. I took the opportunity to encourage RyanC to go inside by himself. Here is RyanC looking back at me after crawling through the tunnel to get inside this obstacle course with medium slides:



Once inside, RyanC was attempting to jump but can't really balance himself so he fell down and then got stuck in between the obstacles. I had to pull him up from the edge since he wedged himself pretty good in there. RyanC had a lot of fun bouncing himself against the obstacles and climbing over the stair-like 3 ft tubes. It took ~10 minutes before he reached the climbing wall area. After watching him bounce around having a blast, I jokingly told him to try go up since he seemed to enjoy falling more so than bouncing. The little monkey headed to the 4-5 ft climbing wall and climbed and climbed... When he got near the top without falling, that's when I belatedly realized he could still get hurt if he fell from the top. I held my breath as he climbed up and eventually disappeared from my view.



I had to run around to the other side of the playground to see where he went. It turns out that he was sitting on the other side looking down at the slide. I tried to get him to slide down but he was really hesitant. He attempted to get down with his back turned and then changed his mind after realizing his feet was not touching the ground. He disappeared from view again after crawling to the other side, which has another slide waiting for him. I rushed over to find him sitting at the top smiling at me. I got closer to the slide and told him I'd catch him. That's when he slid down and laughed the whole way. RyanC repeated this obstacle/slide 2-3 times and then didn't want to play anymore.




It was around closing time so I asked RyanC if he wanted to go home and got the surprising nod from him. However, I wasn't too tired so I took him to BestBuy next door for additional father-and-son bonding. RyanC was definitely attracted to the plasma HDTVs since he'd stand in front of them and stare. He also danced whenever music played so that was pretty funny. We goofed around a little bit before heading home...