We celebrated the long holiday weekend with a trip to a waterpark and resort in Dubuque Sunday and today. We worried about whether Edward was too little to enjoy things, but he really gets into playing in the fountain in downtown Iowa City, so we hoped that would carry over here.

For the most part it did. We won the trip in a March of Dimes silent auction last year, and it included an overnight stay and entry to the water park. We arrived Sunday afternoon and promptly went to the waterpark area. Edward seemed to enjoy himself, playing in the zero-depth end of a wading pool that has a lot of water shooting out everywhere. There was a small slide, and with one parent at the top and the other at the bottom, he did OK and had fun on that. He went on one of the waterslides with me after I determined it was pretty slow, but it went so slow that he had a chance to think about things and decided he didn't like it very much.

We had dinner, then returned in the evening (after a nice walk around Dubuque to digest), but as soon as we got into the zero-depth area again, a little girl came up and played with one of the water jets, sending water into Ed's face. He does not like that (unless he's controlling it), and that coupled with some fatigue meant that the evening was pretty much a wash.

We went back this morning, and after a slow start where he didn't want to do anything, he saw a baby even smaller than he was and decided that he would show off by playing in the spray. It was the most engaged he was for the whole trip, and it made up for a night with little sleep thanks to our noisy neighbors and the fact that a train seemed to go by the hotel every 15 minutes, whistle fully engaged each time.

There was plenty of good people-watching for all of us, and Edward in particular enjoyed the chance to watch big kids playing and water flowing. Everywhere you turned there was water spraying out of a spigot or falling out of a bucket or dropping from a platform. It was tough to keep Ed's attention at times, because he was happy to sit back and observe.


Of course, this being Edward, he had as much fun with things that didn't involve water as not. In our hotel room, as we have found to be the case on other trips, he finds the telephone to be a very fun and exciting toy. Any time a phone rings in his world, he is quick to shout out, "Hello!" With an analog phone, he loves to endlessly pick it up and do the same thing. He spent pretty much all of his waking time in our room doing just that, though he would alternate that with occasional looks out our fifth-floor window to watch for boats going up and down the Mississippi. It was his first experience with boats as far as we know, but after we told him what they were, he took us at our word and would proudly declare that a boat was in view, then run back to the phone.

Following is some video from the trip. He starts with some fun splashing, then plays with the spray jets in the zero-depth pool and finally finishes with some boat spotting, phone answering and shoe gathering. Enjoy.