In which the price of a season pass went up $13

Since we live so close, I got the girls and I season passes to the local amusement/water park. It's a very cool place and definitely worth multiple visits over the summer months. The girls love it, I can tolerate it, and it gives us something to do for a few hours whenever the girls start complaining of boredom during the summer.

On visits to the park in past years, we've been stuck on the little kiddie rides and in the little kiddie pools because the girls were too short for anything fun. Thankfully, they've continued to grow and now K can ride anything in the park. L, however, is exactly 44" tall. That's exactly tall enough for the bigger kiddie rides, but only if the measuring stick for that ride is placed exactly at 44". And the child stands up straight. And stand still long enough to get a good measurement. And the gate guard isn't being overzealous and decides that she's not exactly at the line.

Trust me, there is nothing more disappointing to a 5-year-old than to wait in a line and to get told at the last second that she's "too little" to ride.

After one disaster of a day where Little Miss had to miss out on some rides, I decided to remedy the situation. I made a trip to the local cheap shoe store and found some tennis shoes with really tall heels. They're white and plain and L wasn't too thrilled about not wearing sandals, but I dressed them up with pink flowered shoelaces and she was okay with it.

To make double sure. I put L's hair up into a ponytail smack on top of her head to make it harder to push her down and get a shorter measurement.

As I explained to K, it's not cheating. There's nothing that stipulates that you can't wear thick-soled shoes or ponytails. And she really is (about) 44" and we're just allowing for differences in measurement sticks.

It's all in how you look at it.

We visited the park again on Friday with our new "not cheating" measures in place. We had L officially measured at the front and the guy said "Oh, yeah, she's way over the mark" and he gave her the coveted "44 inches" wristband so that none of the gate guards had to measure her again. No more last-second disappointments and Mommy gets to add a few more interesting rides to the repertoire.

That was a well spent $13.