Daddy Days: A retrospective on our visit to a trampoline park
I recently had a new parenting experience. Somehow, I had never taken the boys to an indoor trampoline park. Conditions were right when I had a couple days off recently (i.e., it was cold, raining and Groupon had a super deal for six kids to jump), so my wife and I took the family to a nearby indoor jump park.
As soon as I walked in my senses were accosted by two things: 1) the tremendous amount of noise in the building from happily screaming kids, music and workers unhappily telling kids to be less happy (aka, to stop running); 2) an excessive number of signs directing you to sign a waiver for all jumpers before going to the check-in counter.
Even being a trampoline park newbie, I expected both of these things. I don’t know that I anticipated quite that level of noise on a school day, but home schoolers are kids, too, and they know how to make noise like any other children. The waivers were insanely long and there was no way I could read through six of them before the kids went bananas, so I skimmed.
It was quickly apparent that somewhere in the long waiver there was a clause that said the teenage employees walking around in uniforms are only there for show and don’t actually supervise or enforce any rules.
As a pack of stampeding kids tore across the main bouncing mat at staggering speed, an announcement played over the intercom that said there was no running allowed. Or maybe it said, “when you run, make it really, really loud.” The kids definitely heard it the second way.
The place had two huge pits filled with foam blocks and I figured the boys would love those. The 3-year-old was not having any of this at first, though. He didn’t even want to take off his shoes to get on the jumping mat.
In hindsight, this probably looked like the kid Thunderdome so perhaps I should have applauded his prudent hesitancy to immediately run into the fray.
In reality, I convinced him to take off his shoes, then scooped him up and tossed him into the foam pit. Thankfully, he immediately realized how awesome this was and spent a long, long time climbing out and jumping back in (while shouting “Minja Turtles!”).
As I looked across the expansive interior of the trampoline park, the play seemed to go from rambunctious (the foam block pits), to raucous (the herd of trampo-peding kids on the main bouncing area), to absolute insanity (the projector game area).
Off to the side, in the area designed for younger kids, there was a ball pit. Next to the ball pit was a large white wall where they projected a game wherein kids could throw balls at animated characters (bears, lions, etc.) and get points. The little kids had a great time throwing balls at targets on the wall and watching the bears make silly faces when they were hit.
But there was a contingent of children who I can only think mistook these animated bears for the real deal and were sort of losing it attacking the wall. And not with the plastic balls from the ball pit. Kids were throwing shoes, foam pads (from where??) and even just plain wailing on the animated bears with their fists.
I kept our boys away from the fray, but it was our first time so I kind of looked around to see what the other parents and employees were going to do. In a word: nothing. The parents all acted like this was what this area was for and I never saw any workers even look over at the commotion. I’ve heard of “rage rooms” where adults take out their anger smashing TVs or something, and I think maybe this section of the place was in that vein. We didn’t spend much time over there.
Overall, the kids had a good time and it’s a neat place to check out. If you want a fun time, jump into one of the foam pits. If you want a thrill, bounce around on the main floor during a trampo-pede. And if you’re a real dare devil? Hang out in the ball pit.
Harris and his wife live in Pflugerville with their seven children. Please email comments or suggestions for future columns to thoughtsforcaleb@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Daddy Days: A retrospective on our visit to a trampoline park
