Indoor skydiving was pretty cool! We arrived at the Niagara Freefall and Interactive Center this afternoon, pleasantly surprised that we were the only ones there, thanks to our visit falling on a Monday instead of the weekend. How perfect was that?!
The cost for 3 people, plus videos of our experience was about $250. Seriously. Crazy to even think of paying that amount of money for something that look less than 1 hour, max.
We suited up in our suits, goggles, helmet, and gloves after watching a quick 6-minute training video on the hand signals our instructor would use during the flight session (including how to properly place our hands and legs, and how to tuck and roll if you should fall). Seemed pretty easy…how hard could it be? The training videos showed us the pros doing flips and turns and effortlessly maneuvering their body against 140-mph winds. It should have shown amateurs flipping and flopping like fish out of water, because that’s what we looked like! LOL
Anyhow, Kwasi and I went in first with our instructor, while Kojo hung outside in the observation window with Kwabi. Kwabi was freaking out the whole time we were in there (which couldn’t have been more than 10 minutes total). The poor kid had tears streaming down his face, with his hands covering his mouth in a dramatic “nooooo!!!” Later I found that he was so scared that he shit himself!
When we first walked into the wind tunnel, the first thing we noticed was the heat. We were suited up from head to toe, so walking into the tunnel and feeling the humidity hit us….we both had moments of panic, like, “What are we doing here?!” I had a fleeting moment of clausterphobia, and felt my heart starting to pound a bit faster in preparation for something I had never done before: flinging myself over 140-mph winds, with the possibility of breaking a bone if I didn’t tuck-and-roll properly when falling.
Kwasi went first, as I stood on the side, in the padded walls area. The instructor had him lie down on the huge fan-part, until enough wind was generated to lift his body. He floundered and wiggled, trying to find his groove. The instructor wrestled with keeping him upright. It was pretty hilarious!
Next was my turn. I, too, floundered like a fish out of water, although I felt pretty confident when our instructor clapped for our efforts.
The experience wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. Yes, it was fun, but it was also HARD! The winds were extremely powerful, and it almost felt like a workout as I attempted to keep my arms in the proper position. Falling was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be (I guess because we were not falling far; however at one point during the end of the session when we were a bit more skilled and the instructor could let us go, I flung myself upward and if the instructor had not caught my leg, he says I would have gone up a good 20 feet and then would have crashed. Ahhhhh……I love extreme sports. 🙂
Next it was Kojo’s turn, and Kwasi, Kwabena, and myself watched through the observation window (he, too, was a fish out of water! LOL). This time, Kwabena was completely fine, but I could see why he was so upset; the sound of the wind, even from outside, was very loud and frightening for Kwabena, especially when his parents were doing something so unfamiliar to him. He recovered quickly, though, so no harm done! 🙂
Indoor skydiving was definitely cool, and something I would love to do again! Maybe one day we will, and we will also be able to flip and turn and do all the cool tricks that the professionals do in the training videos. LOL 🙂 Well worth the experience for anyone vaguely interested! Maybe next we’ll actually jump from a plane 😉
After indoor skydiving, we went to do go-karts. I kept prodding Kwabena to stay awake (it was well past his afternoon nap). When we arrived, I was ecstatic to see that he met the high requirement of 36″ minimum height! (The benefits of having a tall kid….). Hard to think of taking such a young child go-karting, but as he and I were whipping (cautiously, though!) around the bend of the track for the umpteenth time, I had a fleeting thought of how cool it was to be able to take my child out for stuff like this…. When they are babies, parents are limited in the activities they can do with their child. But once they start to grow up, a whole new world of parenting opens up; a world of recreational pastimes that they once had to sit on the side-line and observe. Now they are old and big enough to participate!
So there we were… Kwabena and me in a go-kart. My baby had on a big black and white helmet that looked like any moment would topple him over if he leaned an inch in any direction. I strapped him into the passenger side, ready for any moment of panic or objection from him. But there was none! In fact, he was pretty quiet. Probably because it was his nap time and he was feeling pretty mellow. But he sat there, strapped in, his thin legs tucked beneath him, his little body swaying from side to side as we sliced each sharp corner.
After we were done, Kwabi mentioned a few times about how he “beat Daddy.” 🙂 What a big boy he is!
Soon after, he fell asleep in the car on our way to an Italian restaurant, and he slept the duration of the meal. It felt nice to be able to enjoy my meal without having to chase him around the restaurant, or scold him for crawling under the table, the way I did the previous days’ meals. I sat back and thoroughly enjoyed my brushetta, salad, and samosas! 🙂
After lunch, we drove through Niagara-On-the-Lake, one of the most beautiful areas I have ever seen. We visited there in 2004 when we were last here, also. However, this time, we didn’t stop. Most of the shops were closed, anyhow. But it was an experience just seeing the gorgeous homes nestled among trees, with Lake Ontario in their front yard. How blessed they are! I saw homes so well-manicured that the homeowners must pay for someone to tend to each minute detail of their home’s appearance, because it seems like it would be such a time-consuming effort: homes with fresh flowers dotting their porches… trees with lovely ornaments proudly displayed….and for whom? It was evident that each detail of their homes were mindfully decorated. And I thought of our small, 2-bedroom condo and its clutter and mindless decorations, most having no rhyme or reason….
Anyhow, again, sorry for tangents…….
This evening I hoped it would be an easy night getting Kwabena to sleep. No such luck! He didn’t go to sleep until nearly 11 p.m.!! I am such a fool not to have realized that he was overheated. This time around, we kept the blankets off, as well as the socks, and limited the sugar before bed. Still, he tossed and turned…until Mommy finally got the brilliant idea to request a fan (duh!). As soon as I directed the cool breeze onto Kwabi, his little arm wrapped around my neck, his body stilled, and his breathing slowed as he instantly drifted off into la-la land. Jeez, you’d have thought I would have figured it out sooner…but I didn’t think the heat would bother him that much. Last night after Kwasi and I were ready to call it a night, we slept with the door to our room open, with the flow of the cool air from the portable A/C unit in the living room shooting directly into our bedroom. It was so much cooler last night.
So here it is, nearly midnight…and I’m blogging away. Part of my reason for so much detail (not that many people will even get this far into reading these long-ass blogs) is for my benefit. I’ve got the worst memory. Details of my past events are foggy memories unless I write in detail what I did, and take plenty of pictures. If I can’t recall events from a few years ago, imagine how pathetic my memory will be when I’m 80 and I’m reflecting on my young adulthood life! Without my journals and blogs, I will be hopeless. Plus, raising Kwabena is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, documenting my life with him is #1 priority to me. Hopefully everyone reading this will get some enjoyment out of it, too 🙂
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