Shannon Park - Dublin - 8/10

About a month ago we went to this awesome park in Dublin. It is a bit of a drive for us, but it had a water feature / fountain to play in, and one of my Meet-up groups was heading there.In addition to the water feature, Shannon Park has an amazing play structure. Slides, climbing, and tubes all Holly favorites.This is the toddler structure, a little more manageable for Holly to climb and play on without help. The thing is, it was a very hot day, so she wasn't too excited about doing much besides playing in the water.And of course swinging on the swings. This is a little bonnet that she got from her Oma to help keep the sun off her face and head.But the Main attraction was this water feature. Holly was roaring to go and wanted to try it out. There were three steps down into the deepest section and holding my hand she climbed down without a second thought and was walking and exploring and trying to check out the fountain. She was doing so well and the water was only up to her waist I decided to take a seat and let her play. You can see from this picture I was maybe 8 feet away from her.Well she was having a wonderful time, until she fell. In the next picture you can see how she is starting to loose her balance. I think it was a combination of the wind, and a strong water current from the waterfall. Also I think she was a bit over confident and didn't realize that it takes extra skill to walk in water. She fell to the side and went under, she would normally have caught herself on her hands and knees and stood up, but I think the shock of being under she sort of flipped around onto her back and was struggling to "float"She was kicking her legs and waving an arm but her Bonnet was heavy with water and was pulling her down backwards and making it hard to keep her head out, her face was out of the water, but her ears were under and she was on her back which she really dislikes. This all happened in a matter of a few seconds before I was at her side and scooped her up. She seemed to have swallowed a little water but was fine by the time I reached her and was really just scared.I don't have a lot of pictures from the rest of the day because my camera got submerged when I went to rescue her, as I was holding it taking pictures when it happened. Once she was relatively calm i made her a bottle and we sat and took a soothing break. I took out the battery and memory card from the camera and let them dry in the sun. After her bottle she was ready to play again. I was worried the camera was permanently damaged but it eventually dried completely out.
We went back to the tubes she was playing in earlier. In the tubes it was shaded and she was damp from playing in the water, so she did do some climbing. And had fun, but she was leery of going back to the water.It was very important to me that she not be traumatized by this event however so I made several attempts to re acclimate her. First I just walked by the water, and that was enough, but then i sat on the ledge near the waterfall. Then I let her splash in the waterfall.We would take a break. On the other side of the park was an amazing sand pit with a ton of sand toys. I didn't get any pictures because of the waterlogged Camera, but we filled some buckets with water that she splashed, in the sand, and we went to the waterfall to fill them.Over the next two hours we slowly got reacquainted. At first she would walk along the first step. Holding mommy's hand. The water there was about 4 inches deep. Next she would sit on that step with her feet on the lower one, maybe 9 inches or so and splash. Eventually she stood and walked along that step, holding Mommy's hand. Finally she went back into the deepest part. For a while holding my hand, and then eventually she was confident again and pushed me away. But I stayed close, right behind her in fact. She did have to self correct her balance a few times due to the water flow, and I would hold her hand to make sure she didn't fall again. Eventually she was splashing int he waterfall and running all around, and happy. It took a while, and several breaks on the swing and slide and sand pit and back to the blanket to chat with the to her moms and have a snack. But eventually we did it. Sadly I got to spend precious little time talking to the other mom's as there kids were older and could go off and play on there own, and they were able to talk. I had to follow Holly all around the park. But I didn;t mind, in fact that's the best part of it, getting to watch her play and see her discover and learn.Slides - 1 - There were several but it was too hot to go down many except the tube slides, and those she can;t do yet without help.

Swings - 1 - Yes - They were a life savor of comfort.

Surface - 1/2 - There is sand, grass, and sidewalk. Bu the structures are basically in a sandy tree bark mix.

Shade - 1/2` - The water area is actually very shaded but the play structures were not, and they were hot. The sand area was also not shaded but it wasn't too hot. We did find a place to sit under a tree with our quilt and our group.

Climbing - 1 - Lots of climbing in the older structure and even in the water area.

Parking - 1 - Very large lot near the various play structures easy to park.

Bathrooms - 1 - There were both bathrooms and a place to rinse off if you were covered in sand different from the water feature.

Distance - 0 - I think ti took me about 35 minutes. We had a great time, but it would't be a regular outing.

Friends - 1 - So many kids in addition to the moms and kids from out meet-up group.Amoung the moms we hung out with were Georgina and Janelle F.

Fun - 1- except for our scary fall it was a lot of fun.