onetiredmama: Pool (Pity) Party

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It's 95 degrees out and I know I shouldn't complain, but sometimes (OK a lot of times) having a pool is a pain. For one, it means actually putting on a bathing suit. Enough said.

But with two kids who can't swim, and no one to help wrestle the slippery little seals into bathing suits and swimmy diapers, it can be a nightmare.

Riley refuses to float around in her baby fun boat. Instead, she must cling to my side at all times. She can hang onto me without my even touching her. She reminds me of a little plush koala bear my grandfather gave me when I was ten that was supposed to clip onto a car visor. He was always picking up goodies for us at the flea market. (I've only recently realized the hair clip he gave me with a feather dangling from a leather string was actually a roach clip. I'm sure he didn't know.) Anyway, that's how strong this kid's grip is (the koala, not the roach clip.)

Jack is shouting to the neighbors 3 doors down as they eat outside. "Hey guys! I'm in the pool! Are you drinking coffee out there! I like coffee!" I try to explain to him why they aren't answering, and then he notices duct tape girl stuck to me, and he wants to be held, too. So I've got a kid under each arm, like duffle bags, trying to keep my head from going under because I do not know what chlorine will do to $100 highlights.

Riley demands her "Boot! Boot!" which is "boat" in Riley-speak. I make my way across the pool with the Velcro twins weighing me down and she stiffens up as I put her in the requested vessel. "No, no, no!" Of course not. Silly me. Then she decides licking my arm would be great fun. Her clinging becomes more like pawing and she pulls my suit down, like I'm looking for beads at Mardi Gras.

Meantime, Jack has detached himself from me and is spitting in the pool. "Don't do that honey. We don't spit." "But water was in my mouth." This kid can talk himself out of anything. Scam artist or lawyer? We'll find out which 20 years from now. "Ok fine, you can't spit water out but don't spit out spit!" So he continues to spit out water looking at me the whole time. "See that was water, not spit." But progressively I can tell he's spitting spit again.

Riley and I play the laugh-a-minute game called "Wook! A beeee!" where she spots one of the 800 bugs floating in our pool that you don't notice until you play "Wook! A beeee!" This involves not only spotting the "beeeee" (any insect floating in the pool,) but it also involves trying to scoop it up from it's watery grave and toss it out of the pool saying "Bye beeee!" The game then progresses on to "Wook! A Weaf!"

Writing of column prompted Lisa to nag husband to get ladder down. Note naked child. Baby got back!

Riley wants Out! I wade over to the deck and hoist her up. Now she wants Out! Which actually means "in," in this case, but for Riley "out" just means, the place that I'm not, right now. (The same logic holds true for the word "off" and "open" -- just so you know.) So she jumps in (out) and out 23 times, until her foot slips in the paper thin crevice between the deck and the pool. There is much crying and drama.

Now if all this wasn't enough fun, my husband HATES the pool. It's nothing special, just an aboveground pool that came with the house. If it was one of those fancy hot-tub-waterfall-pools, well, we'd be singing a different tune. (And we'd probably have enough cash to have a pool boy if we could afford a pool like THAT.)

But Pat didn't grow up with a pool. I did. I wasn't a cul-de-sac kid with lots of buddies to romp around with all day, I was a country kid with less than a handful of children on our long lonely road. So, I spent a lot of time in the pool. My two little friends and I would perfect our mermaid swim, and choreograph sad little synchronized swimming routines. I have such fond memories of our pool that I want my children to have too. But right now it's like trying to defend having a wooly mammoth in the backyard for a pet.