Valley Fair

Ryan has been to Valley Fair (a Six Flags type amusement park in Minneapolis, MN) with his father three two or three times. This past weekend was the first time he and I have been able to go together. I know he enjoys carnival rides and roller coasters but I didn't know it was to the level it was!! He was very excited to get there and actually had a lot of patience, which impressed me. It was a grey, dreary day but that turned out to be a blessing- not many people are willing to brave the rain :) We had my friend's 3 year old with us and he and Ryan spent the first part of the day going on the smaller rides. Finally, it was time to ride the big rides. This was my first time at this park, and it had been many, many years since I've riden these types of rides, so I was almost as excited as Ryan! We decided on "Wild Thing" as our first coaster. As the name suggests, it was one wild ride!! It was a "thrill" coaster- Ryan grabbed my arm and smiled the entire ride. Seeing the pure joy on his face was priceless. We rode many rides that day and it was by far one of the most fun days I've had with Ryan. The next day we went to the Mall of American and ate at the Rainforest Cafe. I'd really wanted to eat there and I thought Ryan would get a kick out of it. For those who don't know, it looks like a rainforest inside, it "rains" and smokes and there are monkeys, butterflies, frogs and other simulated wildlife there as well. Its really a cool place! Ryan LOVED it. It would 'thunder' and 'lightning' and then the rain would fall and the smoke would rise. After lunch, we went to LegoLand. Again, Ryan was well behaved and happy. THEN he saw Nickelodeon Land (or whatever the real name is) and he wanted to ride the roller coaster. Mike and I decided we wanted to ride one too. So we bought one ticket each and we walked to the biggest, twistiest one we could find. Suddenly, Ryan wouldn't take another step. He kept repeating "I don't wanna go on there" and "lets try that one", pointing to a smaller roller coaster. I kept asking what was wrong, why don't you want to go on this one. I was so shocked because after Valley Fair, I didn't think he'd have any problems with anything and this one was quite a bit smaller! It took over 5 minutes of talking and then Mike and I gradually walking in before we finally figured out what was wrong. He thought he was going to hit his head on the ceiling. The coaster starts out with a completely vertical climb to a nearly vertical fall, and the top looks like its close to the ceiling (obviously its not). Ryan felt like since this tall coaster was inside, we must hit our heads on the ceiling going over the top. I kind of laughed in relief to finally figure out what was bothering him, and calmly explained that he would NOT hit his head. He bounded up the stairs and had a great time on the ride.
Then it was time to leave. My parents were at home waiting on us and we had a 4 hour drive in front of us. Ryan cried, screamed and pulled on my arm for the next hour and a half. He wanted to ride more roller coasters and he wouldn't listen to me as to why we couldn't. He threw himself on a bench at the Mall and cried. People were looking at us, but how do you explain? "My son doesn't understand why we can't keep riding the roller coaster"... Once we got on the Interstate, he fell asleep. We drove for about 45 minutes before stopping for gas. He woke up, immediately started crying and whining about the roller coaster. What on earth!! So I bought him some gummy worms and again explained that Grammy and Grandpa were waiting for us. He finally calmed down. That was one of the best trips ever, but it reminded me again that we still have to be very careful about what we do with Ryan. In this situation, riding NO roller coasters would have been better than riding ONE. *note to self*