Pool party
After all those years, I still make the most basic parenting mistakes. If you are planning to go to the pool on a hot summer day, do not, I repeat, DO NOT tell you kid two days in advance.
For Father’s Day Pia and I had planned to see some friends and spend a substantial amount of time next to a community pool (and, of course, inside the pool). I told her a few days ago and since then I was asked every five minutes whether it was time to go. Her sense of time is not really developed at the moment. 15 mins, 2 hrs, 3 days - she doesn’t really understand what that means. I have to use something like Handy-Manny time units: “If you were to watch Handy Mannys until we go, you would see 50 episodes!”, which in turn raises the question “Daddy, how much is 50?” - “Sigh, here, have another cracker.”
On Sunday morning she started to change into her new bikini at 6:30am (we did not leave until 9 Handy-Mannys later). She had breakfast in her bikini. She walked the dogs in her bikini. And she watched an episode of Handy Manny in her bikini (whoa - that’s as close to a paradox as it gets in this post!).
When it finally happened she was so excited and it was exciting for me to watch her enjoying herself. Target sold us one of the flotation thingies that just barely keep her above the water. If she were completely still, she would probably end up with her head under water. But if she just works a little bit, she stays afloat. I’m proud to report that she’s still alive and that I was able to sit next to the pool for prolonged periods while she was swimming all by herself. We are not talking about knee-deep kiddie stuff - no, this was the real thing: adult-depth ranging between 4 and 6 feet!
Add some more fun at a friends house coupled with chicken/fish skewers from the barbecue and you have a perfect sleeping pill recipe. We returned home around 8pm and that kid was asleep a few minutes later.
This was taken early in the morning (in a bikini, of course):
