Kids n Kalahari - A Wonderful Thanksgiving

This thanksgiving holidays, I flew to Chicago to meet nearly all my relatives residing in the US. Four families with seven kids in total were to spend thanksgiving at Kalahari water resort at Wisconsin Dells. It had been a while since I had been near both theme parks as well as little cute kids. So it was easy to predict correctly that it would be one of my best thanksgiving vacations till date.

****** Confusion at Kalahari ;-) ********

Kalahari is one of the world's largest indoor water parks and makes for an excellent family destination during winter. Complete with an indoor surfing setup, it has several awesome "rides" which are pretty much water slides that splash into a pool. The best of them was this one called the Tasmanian Twister... Meant for only "experienced swimmers", this fast water slide ends with a free fall into a 9-foot-deep pool out of which one has to swim out deftly before the next rider can enter the tunnel from top.

Since sometimes inexperienced swimmers end up trying this ride and nearly drowning, there was a lifeguard stationed at the free fall deep pool. Now I am relatively good at swimming underwater and had tried this ride twice. So for kicks, the third time, I thought I'd free fall head-first and upside down instead of leg-first and upright into the pool at the end. Unfortunately, as I dived below head first into 8 feet deep water, the lifeguard stationed on top thought that I was one of those inexperienced swimmers and jumped in to rescue me! He flung his lifeguard rescue pad which hit me hard on the head. Not knowing what was going on, I assumed that the next rider had entered the tunnel too soon! So while I was trying to swim deeper and away from this guy, I did not understand why he was trying hard to catch me!! A nice game of hide and seek went on underwater for some time before the exhausted lifeguard finally caught and pulled a confused/angry me out of the water :-)

******* Learning with Kids *******

I totally love kids. Surrounded by not one or two but nearly seven really cute adorable children, I could not have asked for more. At the waterpark, I would happily volunteer to watch over the kids while their parents would go for rides. Of course they would cast their suspicious eye on me first wondering if I was some kind of a nut case. Kids say the darnest things. My 2 year old cute cousin went to sleep in the van on our way back and woke up in the van after nightfall. She looked up at the night sky and informed her mom, "Amma! Look someone turned on the Moon!"

Of course I learned a few lessons after being with them for five days...

Lesson 5: Don't try to play proper piano in front of 2 year olds, they will often jump in and add their own sound track.

Lesson 4: If you want to role play star wars light saber with 4 and 7 year olds, it's a good idea to be one of the good characters. Playing Darth Vader simply means they are all going to gang up and hit you.

Lesson 3: If a one year old lady likes to grab your nose, picking it up and trying to teach it other parts of the face might just be futile. She is going to keep pinching your nose no matter which part of the face you mention.

Lesson 2: "TIME-OUT" is a disciplinary mechanism for kids 7 year old and lower only. If you are over 20, you do not have to sit on the floor with them and count till 30.

Lesson 1: If a little one says either "Poo Poo" or "Pee Pee" don't bother trying to clarify which. Better to just take it there asap. Otherwise chances are the kid would have already completed the job in-place.