Jeff has always been a bit of an adrenaline junkie. Hence the motorcycle, tattoos, etc. It has always been in the back of my mind that Jasper might someday follow in his footsteps, but then once Jasper’s shy, inhibited and cautious personality started to emerge, I felt like perhaps I’d been spared this particularly brand of maternal anxiety.

Remember when he was scared of the carousel?

Ok, granted he was 2.5, and it WAS a freaky fast carousel – but still, we are talking about the kid too shy to participate in the instructor led activities at Gymboree, who wanted nothing to do with the soccer classes mommy optimistically signed him up for, who used to cling to mommy and beg her to stay every day at preschool drop off!

This weekend, we saw a completely different side of Jasper.

Saturday we went to Ikea to look for some outdoor furniture and we signed Jasper in to Smaaland, the DROPOFF kid’s play area.  He ran right in and didn’t look back. In fact, he wanted nothing to do with being picked up when I came back an hour later!

Sunday (father’s day) we went to our local town fireman’s carnival – we figured there would have to be a kiddie ride or two he’d be interested in going on.

We picked something mild to start with, little fire engines that go round and round kind of slowly:

You can see his lack of interest.

Next, he and Jeff went on the tea cup ride. Now, the tea cup ride can be as tame or as wild as you make it depending on how fast you spin the wheel and make your teacup spin. All I heard was Jasper screaming “faster, faster!” until they were spinning so fast that Jasper’s head would literally fall over and Jeff had to grab him to keep him from hitting it on the side of the teacup!

Who IS this little thrill seeker?

Next they went on the ferris wheel, which I wasn’t allowed to go on:

Followed up by the roller coaster. Yes, the ROLLER COASTER! Jasper called it the “fast train” and he wanted to go on it again and again:

At this point we started getting daring – I wish I had a picture of how tall the giant tube slide was, at least 5 stories but Jasper and Jeff climbed to the top and sat on the burlap sack and came all the way down.

Next to the pirate ship – one of those ships that goes really high up and down – the kind that I hate and make me queasy. Not Jasper!

We had to practically bribe him to go on the tamer kiddie rides like this dragon:

The fun house didn’t daunt him in the least:

It was wonderful to see him having so much fun! The great thing is that now that we know how much he loves carnivals and rides we always have a weekend ace in the hole activity – there’s always a carnival SOMEWHERE nearby on summer weekends.

Now I just have to convince Jeff to sell his Harley before little Mr. Daredevil gets any ideas..

Filed under: milestones by ariana
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