We went to (shocker!) the local mega-lo-waterpark again. What can I say? It’s really, really hot here which makes the water park sound pretty appealing most days. The season pass is convenient, it’s only a short drive away, and Ava adores it. While we have many, many beaches nearby and do visit them a lot sometimes I just get tired of sand EVERYWHERE.
The difference with our trip this time is that we all went with a friend.
I had my friend, J had his friend/coworker/my friend’s husband (we set them up way back when and I was the matron of honor at their wedding), their oldest daughter took her friend, and Ava had her pal, Izzy (our goddaughter). Confusing, eh? Sounds almost inbred, really.
Regardless – we had a great time for most of the day. I got to talk/gossip/complain for hours, J got to ride all the rides he never gets to with me and Ava, there were many hands and eyes watching the little ones, and I got a clear picture of what 14 year old girls act like when they are forced to hang out with their parents in public. Oh yeah, and a preview of exactly how many teen boys will follow you around to get glimpses of those barely teenage girls.
It was packed, however. That wasn’t pleasant. Our usually sparsely populated kid area out in the Back 40 was overrun with people – not all of which were there with kids (which just bugged me).
Why did it bug me?
Maybe you can tell me why someone would think it was appropriate to untie your bikini top while laying in the shallows of the kid pool.
That’s Izzy’s tush, by the way.
I was about 15 seconds from going over and asking her to put her top on when she realized we were all glaring at her so she quickly tied things back up and moved on.
Sheesh, come on. Head over to the big people pool to do this. Especially because it could really be dangerous in this part of the park. There are lots of little, little ones there and I’m some of them would likely view her as a potential food source.
Anyhow, Ava and Izzy didn’t notice because they were too busy swimming…
and having a snack…
and catching some rays.
I did catch some attitude from both of them, too. They were apparently paying way too much attention to the teenagers in our midst.
A bit sassy…
and a lot of hands on hips action here.
After we left the kiddie area we headed over to the big pool for a little while before heading home. It was here that I was blindsided with my first really uncomfortable race/adoption incident. Mostly race, actually.
We were sitting in the shallow end with the little ones trying to get them acclimated to the wave pool when two young African-American girls (like maybe 7 and 6-ish years old) came up behind Ava and started following her saying “Ni-Hao, Ni-Hao.” They then turned to me and asked if Ava was my daughter. I brought her in closer to me and said that yes, she was. They then asked if she were Chinese (Duh!) and I again answered in the affirmative. This puzzled them, of course and we had a back and forth dialogue about how she could be Chinese and still speak English. I was trying to be patient and educate them when the older one looks at me and told me that she knew how to speak Chinese (for the first time ever I was cursing the show, Ni-Hao, Kai-Lan) and she started walking toward Ava again saying “Ni-Hao” and “Ching-Chong, Ching-Chong.” It was at this point that I’d had it and lectured them (age appropriately, I think) for a couple of minutes on polite behavior and then told them to leave now and go back to their mother. They high tailed it out of there posthaste at that point.
Ava is clueless as to what’s going on (thank goodness) and I was left with a sick, sad feeling that this is only the first of many times that Ava is going to experience this. My heart broke a little and I became a whole lot more cognizant of what ignorance my baby is going to deal with. I wish I could protect her from this. I hate that I can’t.
I still don’t know if I handled this properly and I’m still dwelling on it and trying to figure out if I did the right thing and/or what should I have done or said differently. I know that these were just kids and they weren’t trying to intentionally hurt Ava (or me) but it doesn’t excuse it nor does it excuse the lack of freakin’ parental responsibility of leaving small children unsupervised and talking to strangers in a crowded water park while in/near a 9 foot deep wave pool without life jackets, no less. Grrr!
Great pictures! It looks like Ava had a blast with her little friend. They look like they could share secrets for years to come.
Still pondering your situation with the other two little girls…. so I don’t have a comment or suggestion…yet. 
Love the pictures – Ava is adorable as always.
Nothing useful regarding the situation you face except to say “I sympathize”. I am probably going to post soon about Lucy’s hair and the issues it raises for me as the white parent of a biracial daughter. I’m sure this is a long line of situations that we will both come across.
I found your blog through Rumor Queen, and I just wanted to say “hi”. We are also a military family (Navy), and we just moved to Monterey, CA from Virginia (well, back in March). We are LID 3/20/09, so we are also in for the LONG wait! Just wanted to introduce myself because we have a lot in common!
Allie