Ty and I went to One Stop Fun last Sunday. They have quite a setup there. The play tunnels and tubes cover an enormous area (I described it to mom as “McDonald’s Play Place on steroids”). There were two ball pits, one for the “toddlers” (4 and under) and one for the older kids. Tyler LOVED the ball pit. They also had a separate room with big glass windows that you could look into from the main play area. In the other room was a bouncy house, a bouncy caterpillar thing, a zip line and a bunch of other stuff. Ty stood there with his face plastered against the glass, asking “mommy, can we play in there??” I told him it was just for birthday parties. Of course, the next words out of his mouth were “can I have my birthday party here?”. He’s been planning his own birthday party for several weeks now. That’s ok with me – hey, it saves me from having to figure out what to do! 🙂
The day we were there was a rainy day, and apparently there were a couple of birthday parties going on at the same time. There must have been a hundred or more kids there. It’s a testament to how big the place is that even with that many kids there, it didn’t really feel super crowded. The problem with One Stop Fun, from a jaded grown-ups perspective, is that I kept thinking “wow, this place is nothing but a giant petri dish. I’ll be astonished if I don’t get sick from this”. Even though I never said it out loud, the jinx still took hold, because the next day is when I woke up with a sore throat (the beginnings of my strep throat).
Even so, I am glad we went, because Tyler had a BLAST! And I had a blast watching him. I was pleasantly surprised at how well he did in all that chaos. He wasn’t super clingy to me, and was even bold enough to climb three levels high in the climbing structure. Even more surprisingly, twice they turned the lights down for 20 minutes so the birthday parties could play flashlight tag. I expected Ty to be nervous and not want to play during that time, but not only was he not nervous, he kept asking if he could play flashlight tag too! He did finally get a flashlight, and was able to run around playing for awhile. All in all, it was a very nice way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon.
