Why daycare centres shouldn't have jumping castles.

Eli's daycare centre's end of year party was great fun. There was singing, dancing, sausages, cordial, ice blocks and...a jumping castle! I'd previously kept the existence of jumping castles very consciously under wraps from Eli and it came as no surprise to me that he loved jumping around like a lunatic all afternoon. In fact, Eli and some of his closest mates (Sam and Ethan) had to be closely watched all afternoon and they were particularly unkeen (as Eli is generally) on the idea that they had to share the jumping castle with other kids and had to wait their turn. Fortunately for these three guys very few other kids shared their stamina and enthusiasm, so they had lots of goes at the jumping castle. There were surprisingly few head clashes and no major injuries were recorded, which was a great relief to all of the parents in attendance. Finally, when they started taking the air out of the jumping castle - much to Eli's disgust - Eli decided that it was time to go home (I'm sure he was completely knackered), even though the older kids were still signing and dancing.


Knowing Eli as I do, it came as no surprise that the following day he sought to adapt his jumping castle skills to some tom-foolery around the house. Here's a short video of him jumping off the couch (a sport which is banned in our house - but I couldn't resist filming it before putting a stop to it) and having a great time of it.