Great Wolf Lodge June 28, 2012

     My triceps and hamstrings hurt, I am deaf partially in my right ear and completely in my left, and my ring finger has been bent backward and a portion of its fingernail ripped off. I am sunburned, especially my forehead, and I am still woozy from a dose of Benadryl that I took last night for some severe and suspicious mosquito bite welts.  My abs are sore and my contacts have been left out today to rest my weary eyeballs. My hair is unruly from chlorine and I'm a touch dehydrated. This can only mean one thing:  it was another successful trip to the Great Wolf Lodge.

     For the past five years, ever since my oldest daughter was in the second grade, my family and I have spent a couple of days with her school friends and their families in this water park in the Poconos Mountains.  Originally, the group was comprised of only her soccer teammates, totalling about fifteeen people from six families.  This year I estimate our group totaled more than 60 people from approximately 18 families.  It is a much-anticipated tradition of  enjoying each other's company, as well as the indoor water park and outdoor pool, and I am proud to say I was one of the few, if not the only, mom on the trip who accompanied her children on the water rides.

     There are a myriad entertaining water rides at Great Wolf.  First and foremost, there is the wave pool. You would think that a body of water with man-made waves would not be that big of an attraction. But you are sadly mistaken.  Young and old folks alike aggressively find and claim large, clear inner tubes, then flop in the water in the said tubes, delighting in the waves that bounce them to and fro. My daughters and I were no exception, sad to report. We held hands and attacked the waves, making a game of who could remain standing as the powerful waves crashed upon us. We giggled and screeched and undoubtedly swallowed some questionable water.

     Then there is the favorite:   the family slide.  This may sound like an inocuous water ride, a quaint, warm and fuzzy little water attraction for the whole family. But again, you are sadly mistaken. My husband, eight-year-old twin daughters and I climbed three stories (too many times to count, by the way) in our not-so-flattering bathing suits, and when we got to the top, were asked to step into a gigantic, yellow, round raft, before we were kicked into motion by a teenage Great Wolf worker, who I recall murmured for us to please keep our hands and feet within the raft and if you become airborne, to  not panic and let go. What?!

     Before I could say get me off this thing, I was hurling down a watery, two-story tube, being thrown across the walls of it, mostly backwards and might I add, at top speed!  I felt like a morsel of food being forced down through persitalsis in the digestive tract of a giant, much like the scientific, educational programs they used to air on channel Thirteen when I was a kid, being traced down the path of the esphogus, and then the small intestine, via a scope with a camera at its tip! Oh the pleasure! I kept my eyes shut tightly, as I quietly said a Hail Mary, as I do when I am deathly afraid and when I am in imminent danger of hurting mysef and others. Before long, our raft plunged into a receiving pool. Phew! My family and I were unscathed. Crisis averted!

     Before I could explain to my children that their Mommy was way too old for such watery adventures, they each grabbed a hand and led me to their all-time favorite:  the froggy challenge. Yes, you read that right. The froggy challenge. The point of this attraction was to hop along a length of a pool, balancing from lily pad to lily pad, each free-floating, quite slippery, and anchored to the bottom of the pool.  One  must make his or her way across a total of about six lily pads, depending on which of the two paths one chooses, with only the rope bridge above to hold onto for balance. The froggy challenge is my children's favorite at Great Wolf because of their thrill-seeking disposition and competitive nature. It is mine, too, because I get to watch, cheer them on, and take pictures of them enjoying themselves.

     That is, of course, until they begged me to try it.

     Now mind you, I am game for anything. You want Mommy to expose the cellulite on her upper thighs in the name of an annual tradition of water park fun?  Sure, I can do that!  When you ask me to not wear a stitch of makeup, for fear that my mascara will make me look like Alice Cooper after being dunked in a warm, public pool at Great Wolf? Bring it on!  But a froggy challenge? I don't think so.  In my estimation, the froggy challenge is definitely scarier, harder and more strenuous than the eight-mile High Rock Challenge at the Greenbelt.  No kidding.  The lily pads to me looked to be the product of a sadistic group of water park ride designers, aimed at making people make fools of themselves. Surely the lilies are too precarious for a middle-aged dentist and mother of three like me to attempt. 

     But my girls pleaded with me, saying how fun it was and how much I would enjoy it , if I only gave it a chance.  And they added it was actually quite easy and the lilies in fact did  not move half as much as I probably thought they did.  But I was no fool.  At times my kids will say anything to get what they wanted. I knew that. And sure it's probably a piece of cake if you are a third grader, going into the fourth grade, because  chances are you weigh 75 lbs and these floating lilies won't move much as you hop from one to another. And even the pre-teeners completed the challenge with ease, weighing in at an average of 100 lbs! But me?!

     Needless to say, before I knew it, I found myself at the froggy challenge starting line, peering down and examining the 4-foot depths of the murky swamp (well, not really a swamp, but swamp-like to me, given the fact that this was a pool of water in an 76-degree year-round indoor water park facility with little to no ventilation) before me. The 17-year-old handsome yet grungy lifeguard whistled impatiently at me, as if to signal, hurry up, lady, and do it already.  Another Hail Mary, and I hopped onto my first lily pad.

     Beginners luck saw me safely all the way to the third lily. My tight grasp of the ropes up above me made my knuckles white, as I smiled a nervous, insane smile, secretly hoping that nobody had an iPhone at the ready  to capture my most pathetic image and make it Facebook status of what not to do over the age of 19.  Why do I always give in to my kids? I thought. I would never have put my Mom up to this when I was eight years old! I exclaimed in my head.

     Amid my intense concentration to not slip and embarress myself, I blocked out the ambient noise, but could still hear my children rooting for me, with their "Way to go, Mommy" cheers.  At the corner of my eye, I saw not only their little friends (siblings of my oldest daughter's friends) clapping, but also a few of their parents, who evidently stopped in their tracks to witness the likely debacle, which would be my wiping out on the oversized lily pads!  Oh why, oh why, was I wearing a swimsuit that was not of the control-top variety? Why didn't I take advantage of that Lands' End sale last October when I had the chance? Why are my twin eight-year-olds so persuasive and manipulative? Don't they love me?

     But for all my panic, I found myself half-way through the challenge, on the fourth lily pad, and I was starting to feel proud of myself. And as fast as I could say, Gracelyn, you still got it, I felt my foot slip when I hopped onto the fifth lily.  Yikes!  Instantly I was in an almost-horizontal, undignified position, hanging onto the ropes for dear life, wishing everyone watching had lost interest and walked away. But no way, Jose. They were all still there.

     I heard a few "Whoas" and "You can do it Mommy" in the background,  just as I remembered I have little to no upper body strength.  I dug deep, dragged myself up onto a semi-vertical position, and found my way to the finish line. Phew! Failure and embarressment were averted, if you don't consider my flailing arms and legs, trying to stabilize my weight on this bobbing lily on this ridiculous challenge an embarrassment (which it was).

     After I smiled with relief and regained composure, I announced to my twins that I would like to join the other, more self-respecting adults in the cabana outside and have a frozen margarita. But they had other plans, dragging me to the lazy river.  What was so lazy about hoisting a heavy, two-person inner tube to a long, winding water path, only to bump into strangers and their children every few feet, getting doused periodically by buckets of ice-cold water from up above?  Nothing.  Nada. Not a single, cotton-picking thing!  But each time water poured on my unsuspecting head, my twin daughters squealed with excitement, pointing and yelling, "They got you, Mommy!" as my back was starting to hurt from a semi-reclined position, trying my best to look thin on this inner tube.  I secretly shook my head in my head, marveling at what I do for my children! After all, when they're happy, I'm happy.

     A few trips down the water roller coaster and the mini-slides in the splash mountain, as my kids call, it, it was time for dinner.  I was famished. Our large group of about 20 families broke up into three groups of about 6 families and soon our party of 18 were seated at the buffet restaurant within the hotel. 

     Was it the best gourmet food ever? Of course not. But were the food choices adequate for a family water park and did it satiate the hunger of weary water park goers? Absolutely yes!  It was in fact delicious and enjoyable, and before you knew it, the four moms and I were lingering and chit-chatting over the day's events, enjoying our coffee and the chocolate cannolis and the best soft-served chocolate ice cream this side of  the Forest Avenue Carvel.

     Eventually, management had to politely request that we retire to the one of the many lounge areas within the hotel, saying his staff would like to lock up the restaurant and go home. Whoops. Sorry, we said.  It was about 10:30pm, and as tired as we moms were, our 12 and 13 year-old daughters were not, and they pleaded to visit the arcade and watch a movie in one of rooms (I was hoping not mine).

     I succumbed to the request, knowing they would be a group of about 10 or 12 girls. I am what you call a nervous, overprotective mom, but I took comfort in the fact that  two of my good friends, very responsible moms, would supervise, not having younger siblings to look after (even though mine were hopefully sound asleep back in the room, with my husband).

     I showered and snuggled into my crisp, cool hotel sheets with my iPad, relaxed after a whole day of water rides and small talk (sometimes one more exhausting than the other). The clock struck about 11:30pm and she was still not back. I read a few more chapters of my book for my upcoming book club dinner, and still no sign of my pre-teen daughter.

     Soon it was close to 1:00am and I was nodding off, getting annoyed at having to wake myself up every few minutes, afraid that I would not hear her knocking on the door. Of course paranoia was now also kicking in, as I found myself angry for letting my daughter wander around in the first place with her friends in a strange hotel in the middle of Scotrun, Pennsylvania, in the middle of the night. What would my husband say if morning came and she was still not back?

    Before I could press the send button of a sternly-worded text demanding to know where she was, my daughter was at the door and back safely. I was exasperated.  Before I unleashed my disapproval at her irresponsible behavior of not returning to the room in a timely fashion, she hugged me and thanked me for letting her hang out with her friends. 

     She had a look of satisfaction and happiness in her face, and regaled me with the details of the fun she had with her girlfriends, how they talked about clothes, makeup, and the boy band, One Direction.  She told me how they each were madly in love with a certain Harry, Niall, Louis, Zayn, and Liam, and how they'd collectively planned on a group wedding.  How wonderful it would be, she said, because they could all star in their next One Direction movie, and live happily ever after.  It was very cute.

     As she changed into her pajamas, she talked non-stop, about how she has the best friends in the world and what a great mom and dad she had for bringing her on this little mini-vacation year after year so she could have fun with them. She mentioned how this year was very special because she was having a blast, and chances are, as seventh graders going into the eighth grade in September, there would probably be no Great Wolf trip next June, because there would be too many graduation parties to attend in lieu of it.

     At this point my anger was completely diffused.  I was happy to  listen to her excitedly tell me the minute-to-minute details of her fun evening, trying hard to whisper, so as not to wake up her little sisters, from who likes what boy, to who wants which teacher this September, to what high schools they'd each like to attend in September 2013.

     Then she said something that completely touched me. She said, "Mommy, remember when I was eight years old and we went here to Great Wolf Lodge and I didn't even know how to swim? And all of my friends were swimming without floaties and I was so scared to even jump in because I thought I would drown? You were so nice and told me not to be scared and to just jump in. You said you'd catch me so there was nothing to be afraid of and that the worst thing I could do is not even try. I'll never forget that, Mommy, because after you said that,  I had the courage to do it, and I jumped and I was ok, like you said.  Thank you, Mommy."  Then she kissed me good night, and before I could respond, she was sound asleep.

     And at that point, I knew that all the effort and annoyance on all these trips to Great Wolf was worth it, achy muscles and all.