Action indoors

Rosabelle woke up fairly early today - 8am - and so we decided to bring her to The Place where we would go visit the indoor play area for the first time. We'd been there previously to just check the playground out, but not too long ago, she could not walk, and we figured it'd be super exhausting for us to support/carry her, but now that she can toddle, ah...it's different.

Also, calculative me figured that since were were paying RMB50 for the all-day pass, we might as well go at a time when she can play for a longer session, rather than just scooting off home for lunch after 30 minutes, heh!

So, our girl had her first indoor playground session today!

She was most attracted to the stacking blocks (all made of foam material) - the whole place is actually all padded/kid-friendly, so it was good for her to just walk/crawl along herself; we just had to look out for older kids who ran around high on sugar overdose...
She even grabbbed blocks to walk along with...

There was a carousel of sorts with short, furry animals on it, and she did not really like riding on them, but would rather walk around in circles around the carousel to eyeball the animals until even I got giddy following her. Note stacking blocks in hand still.

There were many furry animals for her to reach out to and pat as well.

Here she is, on a water bed (was cold to the touch), and she liked the dancing lights below the sheet. An older boy came along later and jumped into the 'water' a few times, and accidentally kicked her on the head as she was proned on it - luckily it wasn't too hard a kick and Rosabelle was very hardy and did not cry, phew!

Yet another water feature - the cascading waters under the slide. Two of us had to look after her for this as the slide surface is hard and one had to carry/release her from the top whilst the other held onto her all the way - if not, she would likely fall back and hit her head. Some of the amenities are obviously for older children, with alot of climbing/jumping etc, so I guess Rosabelle will have more fun next time when she develops further skills, one of which is to know how to avoid dangerous children!

This hamster's wheel is a moving, crawling feature, but she did not like it much.

I was not supposed to accompany her into the kids-only area of plastic balls, but seeing that there were many older kids throwing themselves into the sea of balls, and running around the area, we spent enough time in there for her to wade in the balls. (Call me 无聊 if you must, but I thought to myself at that point: 'Hmmm, my daughter is dressed up to match the colours of the balls - in pink, yellow, and white...' - ok, end of digression).

It was shortly after this that Rosabelle got 'bullied'. She was heading back to the stacking block pool and saw an older boy (about two years old?), and being the friendly kid she is, reached out to touch the boy who was sitting on the floor. In her haste, she accidentally poked the boy in the eye, and the naughty crap of a kid pretended to cry before quickly slapping Rosabelle *hard* on the chest - so much that I could hear a loud 'thump' on her small chest!

My goodness - the cheek of it! And he was not even cute at all! Not that I would pardon him if he's cute, just that since he's so uncute, it makes his act of violence even more deplorable! I immediately told him that it was wrong, and he should not hit a younger 妹妹. Wayne witnessed the whole incident too and quickly came running over to also tell the boy off - seeing there were two adults scolding him, the uncute boy rubbed his eyes and pretended to cry even more. Sheesh!

And our dear Rosabelle? Our brave girl did not even cry, and when we quickly carried her away after, she even looked at the uncute boy and waved her hands, making her usual empathetic-sounding 'Nnnng, nnnng' sounds to indicate that he should stop crying. So sweet of her....well, since she did not cry, we figured it should not hurt as much, but still! The thump on her poor, little chest was enough for us to feel the heart pain - so uncalled for especially when she was just trying to be friendly. Even Wayne, ever so stoic, told me later in the afternoon that '刚才那个小男孩打玥玥，确实挺心痛的...'.

Uncute, violent kids should be barred from such public play places - they should just be locked up at home and left to play with their own other uncute, violent friends so that they do not hurt cute, friendly kids!

After Daddy carried her away in his protective arms, they went on to explore the ringing of a bell. You can see Rosabelle with her eyes half-closed as the ding-dong of the bell was pretty loud! Seeing that she must be tired from about an hour of play (me too!), we sat on the sofa for a rest as I fed her some fragrant pear and she recharged on water. We're not sure if it's the intensive playing, or the early waking up, but she started to get all cosy on Wayne's lap and lying there comfortably. After that, she even laid down lazily on the floor whilst playing with the stacking blocks, haha!

As it was time to head home for lunch, we let her try out one last feature - the flying balloons enclosure (with fans at four corners switched on at full blast). She enjoyed this the most as the balloons flew around her and she could beat at them, and Wayne and I also got down on all fours to chase after her, or hide away from her. Oh, and in case you are wondering, we did not bring her back in the afternoon to make the ticket worth it - there's such a thing as tiring out a child too much, over-stimulation and nightmares and such. But come to think of it, I should have approached another Mummy in the yard to ask if they'd like our ticket - they can then bring their kid in for free....hmmm...