A few years back, before N was born, we went to visit some family in San Antonio, Texas. During the trip we visited the Sea World there. We’ve had mixed results at Sea World in Orlando, but that’s what everyone wanted to do. Besides, how do you explain about the cows?

Of course, it rained.

It rained so hard that most of the family gave up and took off. We were going to leave also, but there was a new show that everyone had been talking about. We just had to see it, they explained. It was worth waiting in the rain. How could we let something like rainstop us from seeing such a great show? So we stayed and went to see the show, while everyone else scurried off to get warm and dry.

The show was called “Viva!”. As far as I know, it’s still there. It’s a mix of divers, dolphins, synchronized swimmers, and music – sort of like Sea World’s answer to Cirque de Soleil. It was worth the wait.

C, who was just about 1 year old at the time, was absolutely entranced. We started off the show, with J and I pointing things out to him: “ooh, look at that!”, “Wow!”, and so forth. We stopped pretty quickly, though, because he was doing it on his own.

He spent most of the show standing on my lap. I had my arms loosely around his middle, and he was leaning forward into them, acting like they were a seat belt. His eyes were really wide, and he produced a steady stream of “Wow”s, “ooh”s, and “ah”s.

It was when the synchronized swimmers hit the water, though, that things really got fun. As they rotated around in the water, waving their arms (and legs) in the air, C put both hands over his head and waved them back and forth in a pretty fair imitation of the swimmers. His whole body swayed, leaning into my hands, while his hands and arms waved. His eyes were shining wide, and his mouth was slightly open in one long breathlessly repeated “wow.”

I glanced over at his momma to see if she’d noticed. She was smiling ear to ear, with tears streaming down her face. My own eyes were dry of course, except for some leftover rain dripping from them. I’d really no idea that my eyelashes could hold that much rain for that long.

If you find yourself wondering why we keep going back to Sea World despite our horrible luck there, that’s the reason. Even three years later, living in a state whose park doesn’t even have that show, we keep trying.

Viva!