Hot weather and a toddler too energetic to keep indoors gave me the bright idea of bringing Avery to a nearby splash pad yesterday. It was the same one my wife and I brought her to a few months ago, and I was hoping she’d be more into it this time.

That time, I ran and met my favorite ladies there to play together in the assortment of shooting water structures. We took turns swinging her in the air to go in and out of water streams, but ultimately, she seemed unimpressed with the whole ordeal.

This time, I thought I’d get my workout “fix” in and run the 2+ miles in my Soft Star Shoes again, but also pushing Avery in the stroller. Not surprisingly, the Texas sun and weight of a toddler in a stroller made the run a little more difficult.

By the time we arrived, I was more excited about getting in the water than any of the other kids around. Which, by the way, there were a lot of kids. I saw two daycare vans in the parking lot and would’ve turned right around to go home if I were driving. But, the need to cool down and my determination to see Avery run around having a blast kept me from leaving. I took her out and set her down prepared to watch her run amok.

This picture look familiar? Pretty much the same spot and stance from her first visit to the pad. My heart started slowly sinking…..or maybe it was just slowing down to normal after running. Either way, her non-action was not the reaction I was hoping for. At least she turned around and smiled for the camera when I asked…

I tried running through the water obstacles in hopes she would follow suit, but no luck. She did, however, take a few steps and watch the fountains spit shots of water out.

Meanwhile, kids are running all around her screaming and having fun. Except for one boy who ran around and threw water from a bottle on me and then hit another boy in the face with the empty bottle. Yeah, he went to time-out after that.

The first trip with Going Mom was more fun than this. At least I had a beautiful wife to keep me company and help toss Avery around to get her to do something. I lifted her over my head and ran circles and went through a few sprayers which got her to laugh. Then I set her down thinking that might’ve warmed her up and she would be ready to go, but….

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And that pretty much sums up our lackluster outing to the splash pad. Guess we’ll stick to bounce houses for a bit longer.

I finally gave up with the splash pad and prepared to run back home. Not surprisingly, Avery never made a fuss about getting back in the stroller and she had a fun time shouting out “car” or “tree” at every car or tree we passed. There were a lot of both.

Feeling unsatisfied with our watered down water fun, I thought it best to stop by our neighborhood pool since we know how much she loves that! I guess no one wanted to come outside at that time, so we had the pool all to ourselves.

We “swam” in the big pool for a bit, and then migrated over to the kiddie pool so she could stand all by herself.

Kelley and I will ask if she can do high knees in the water and she does it every time. Pretty cute to watch, obviously. I made the mistake of asking if she can do squats in the water, in which she promptly showed she could, but came close to going under. #ParentingFail

After playing around in the kid pool and snapping a selfie with Avery, we were ready to head home. Hey, she smiled!

Despite the uneventful splash pad experience, I still think we had a good time. Maybe I’m just trying to be optimistic, okay, I am being optimistic, but these make for good memories nonetheless. Plus, the pool was our savior for a fun day!

At what age would you expect kids to be into the splash pad?

What’s better, swimming at the pool or a splash pad? Or both?