Jeepers?

I used to take the kiddos to this place. It was like Chuck-E-Cheese without the annoying rodent and it had rides. All indoors, but they ad bumper cars, a roller coaster, a centrifuge dubbed the 'Yak Attack.' This is all good fun, wears kids out, and it's not too annoying that hungry arcade games are all over the joint.

I used to take the kids there when I was alone with them on the weekend. Mo's first seizure followed such an excursion, when she'd ridden the Yak Attack for about 45 minutes straight. The vestibular stimulation was healthy according to the autism literature, but according to her new neurologist, the rides caused seizures and were a no-no.

Except they're not. After four or five years of not taking Mo to Jeepers, of thinking I'd never even get to take her to Words of Fun, I find out that there's no conclusive link. Stress, tiredness, these things can lower your seizure threshhold, and excessive amusement park time provides that. So does getting married, having babies, chaning jobs, etc.

To tell her ahead of time or not? Well, if she knows we're going to Jeepers and she feels like the birthday celebrations at Grandma's house aren't going fast enough, she might act out to get the first part over with. So it was later that I told her we were heading to Jeepers. At this point, we had a couple of stops to make but nothing huge or time consuming.

But I told her. Then took her to th Great Mall, parked the car and led my daughters to the closed sign.

I was going to do this last month, to coincide with Em's birthday, but I could not afford to do it twice in short order and we already had a pretty elaborate party planned for Em. So I put it off for Mo's birthday, and now the closest Jeepers is in the Chicago area.

So now I'm back to square one. Let me know if you know anything that would really replace a long lost indoor roller coaster to a nine year old girl.