✅ Over Protected

52. Big Kids Fool Around

There was so much to look at around the water park that I didn't know where to start. There was a little beach place with sand, where we could pretend we were at the beach and make sandcastles, or there was a little bit of woodland where some of the trees were plastic, and a sign said that there were real interactive dinosaurs for me to make friends with. Or there was a little play area; a fort with a climbing frame, swings, a seesaw, and two slides, but the bottom of it was in the water so if you fell off it would just make a big splash.

I jumped up onto the beach, and immediately noticed that my little swim had made my diaper super wet. It was soaked already, and I didn't even think I'd done a wee. But it must have been a special one, because it wasn't anywhere near as heavy as a wet diaper usually was, and it was still tight where it was fastened around my middle. Maybe this one was a super special diaper, just for going to the water park. When I looked around, I saw that all the babies were wearing diapers that were something like this one. The patterns were mermaids, or mermaids hugging octopussies, or mermaids hugging dolphins, or mermaids teaching unicorns to swim. So maybe they were all special ones, just for today. And for a moment, I wondered if they were like all the different patterns that Mummy normally had for me.

I looked down at my diaper, and squidged it a bit. It felt funny, and I realised that I didn't really care about any of the other stuff. It was still comfy, so I could do whatever I needed to do. And the first thing I wanted to try was that climbing frame. I ran over and started trying to climb, not paying any real attention to the other people around me. But I did stop when Monique put her hand on my back to keep me steady.

"Just a minute, little one," she said. "Maybe you need a little something extra to be sure you won't hurt yourself." I saw that she was holding a pair of inflatable arm bands, and I was going to tell her what a big girl I was, because I could swim all by myself. But then I thought again, and realised that I'd never tried swimming when my head was so full of fog before, and I didn't know if it would be heavy enough to pull me down. Still, better safe than sorry, so I stretched out one arm at a time while she put them on me, and then attached Piggy to my wrist again. She patted me on the head and told me what a good girl I am for my Mummy, and that meant that I was grinning like an idiot when I started climbing again.

It was wonderful knowing that there were so many grown-ups here, looking after me and my friend. We could run wherever we wanted, all over this little island, and there was no way any of us were going to get into trouble. I tried climbing the climbing frame, and fell back in the water so many times. I giggled and spat out any water that got into my mouth, and then started climbing again. Finally I made it, and then I could go down the little slide with a big splash, and everybody else was cheering me. I played some games with the other little ones as well, making up the rules as we went along. I don't think it mattered that we were all following different rules; it just meant that sooner or later we would all end up splashing around and trying to get each other even more wet, until one of the grown-ups came and separated us so we could start all over again.

We did a lot of fun things before I realised that splashing around wasn't quite as fun now. Something had started to change, and I knew that I had to do something even if I wasn't quite sure what it was. I splashed up onto the beach, and ran around the edge of the pool; exploring, and trying to see if there were any bits that I hadn't seen. But that was too easy, and didn't really let me learn anything new. I still wanted to play with everybody, but I could understand now that I was starting to think again, and it was getting harder to enjoy the simpler pleasures of childhood. I glanced down at my diaper, and realised that it had been soaked ever since I came in here. So if these ones were designed for wearing in a water park... they must have something so that whatever was in them would be slowly released, not just when they were wet. But sooner or later, the diaper would run out of power and my fuzzy head would start to clear up again.