The pool has been open for a few weeks now. We've had several friends and neighbors over to swim, and also had our first hot & sunny weekend all to ourselves at home. Accordingly, I am learning lots of things about owning a pool:
1. On weekends, I should not bother getting dressed in regular clothes because the kids will insist on swimming shortly after breakfast.
2. Accordingly, there is no such thing as "playing in the backyard" anymore. As soon as we step outside they start asking to swim. Even at 9am. Even if it's only 75 degrees out.
3. If I heed my own advice and keep my suit on all day, it must be a two-piece. Using the bathroom in a (damp) one-piece and a sundress is no fun.
4. You can never own too many swimsuits. Selecting a fresh one out of the drawer is 10 million times better than attempting to put a cold wet one back on your body.
5. Speaking of swimsuits, there is absolutely no room for body image issues with pool ownership. Friends-Neighbors-Relatives-Coworkers will come over to us the pool. You will swim with them. There is no option of worrying about what you look like in a suit. And no one cares anyway. It's fantastic, actually.
6. One side effect of never knowing when friends might want to come by and swim is that I've been better than ever before at keeping my legs cleanly shaven. The other side effect is that I've been keeping the bathrooms clean. Folks who come over to swim always want to use the bathroom as well. So, yes, the pool is essentially forcing me to clean the bathrooms and shave my legs. These are not bad things.
7. Although the bathrooms are unprecedentedly clean, the rug by the back door is destined to be damp and grassy all summer long. I have pretty much come to terms with that, but Quynh refuses to walk on it. She literally asks to be carried over, "the dirty red rug" and into the bathroom so that her feet don't get dirty.
8. Pool ownership is work. Even though 119 people told me that as we were preparing to buy this house, I still feel the need to state it here. That said, the novelty has not worn off yet and I kind of enjoy skimming and vacuuming the pool, as long as I don't have to learn about the chemical balancing part of the job. That's Minh's thing.
9. I still love to swim as much as I did when I was a kid.
10. I can still do a cartwheel off the diving board.
11. My kids love to swim as much as I did when I was a kid. But while both kids are always excited to get in the water, Tai's lips turn blue after about 15 minutes and he stands there shivering asking to go inside and get changed. Quynh, on the other hand, is already famous for batting her wet eyelashes and asking, "Just one more quick dip, daddy?" and then the two of them swim for 30 more minutes.
12. When Tai says his pool towel, "smells like cheese" it's time to do some laundry.
13. We spend so much time out in the backyard I might actually get a tan this summer. Do not underestimate the gravity of this statement.
14. Swimming with a child who cannot yet stand in the shallow end is exhausting. Although I love playing with both kids in the water and carrying Quynh to and fro across the shallow end, I am very much looking forward to the day she can stand on her own feet in the pool.
15. We are a family of fish.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Outing From Hell
Today I needed to kill exactly one hour between school pick-up and Kung fu class. Today it also happened to be 98 degrees out, so having a nice little picnic snack was not an option. And running home to dip in the pool was also not an option because none of us would want to cut swim time short to go to Kung fu.
So I came up with this Brilliant Plan. I would take the kids to the newly opened frozen yogurt place downtown for a frosty treat. We would sit in the air conditioning, enjoy a snack, and relax until it was time to drive the 15 minutes to Kung fu.
Oh, but then I worried that this plan was so brilliant that surely everyone with a child would make the same plan for an after school frozen treat. So I even made TWO backup plans. First I identified a restaurant near the yogurt shop that had fruit smoothies. And then I always had the public library in my back pocket as well--thanks to a clever coworker for that idea. True, the library does not serve treats, but it has AC, and the kids love it, and it's free!
The kids were aware of plans A and B, but I made no mention of the library idea. Still, as we pulled into a parking spot downtown, Tai asked, "How come we NEVER go to book stores or libraries anymore EVER?". (For the record, it has been about 2 weeks since our last library visit.) I brushed off his criticism of my choice of activity and we proceeded with Plan A. Bookworm that he is, Tai asked to bring his new Superman book into the yogurt shop to read. I said yes. This will be important later in the story.
Much to my delight the yogurt shop did not have a line out the door and even 4 of the 5 tables were empty. "Ha Ha! I must be the only genius in town!" Not really.
Upon entering the shop I immediately noticed (and could not stop from exclaiming loudly) "Oh, there's no air conditioning!!!" Of course the employees heard me and one of them sheepishly explained that it was in fact on (so why was the front door propped open?) while the other employee launched into a much-too-detailed explanation of why they only had three (crappy) flavors to offer today.
Given the limited choices, Tai and Quynh both opted for vanilla. True to form, at the self-serve toppings bar Tai chose fruit and Quynh wanted gummy bears. When I asked Tai what he wanted on his yogurt and showed him the numerous options he pointed to the maraschino cherries and said, "a cherry!". When I asked what else he wanted, my sometimes-greedy and relatively-spoiled child said, "I can have MORE?? Can I have THREE cherries?". In the end I convinced him it would be OK to have several cherries and a few raspberries too. He was delighted.
After sitting there for 15 minutes, sweat literally running down my face and other body parts, we were all ready to get the hell out of there. And it was not nearly time for Kung fu. We all agreed that we needed AC for the next 20 minutes, badly. The library idea crossed my mind right as Tai said, "I bet there is air conditioning in a book store or library." Smart kid. The library is free, but it was a bit further away, and in the opposite direction from the car. But there was a book store right across from the car. Perfect!
The book store was Icy Cold. We sat on the floor and read various books. It crossed my mind to leave without buying anything. But I was soaking up their AC. And my kids do love books. It's not like I was spoiling them with candy or anything. So I said we could get something but they better hurry up and choose, it was time to head to Kung fu. After a lame attempt at negotiation, I ended up buying them EACH a book simply because I did not have the TIME for them to settle on one they both wanted. Let me just say that the 20 minutes of AC cost $1.80 per minute. This put me in a foul mood. Also, we were already running late for Kung fu.
So, Quynh in arms, back into the heat we went, across the street, to the car, rushing, rushing, rushing for Kung fu. We got to the blazing hot car and started to get in when Tai calls out in a panic...(can you guess?) ..."Where is my superman book???"
F$&K!!!!!
I didn't really say that out loud to my kid, but I thought it. "I don't know--Where did you LEAVE it?" and then, "OK, let's go back for it," is what I said in a clearly exasperated voice, along with a mini-lecture about taking responsibility and if we had made it all the way to Kung fu before he realized I would NOT have gone back.
Tai was sure the last place he saw it was the yogurt shop, so back we went and they had indeed put it behind the counter for us. Tai was visibly relieved.
In the end, we made it to Kung fu 15 minutes late for a 45 minute class. I remained grouchy pretty much all the way until we made it home and right into the pool.
So I came up with this Brilliant Plan. I would take the kids to the newly opened frozen yogurt place downtown for a frosty treat. We would sit in the air conditioning, enjoy a snack, and relax until it was time to drive the 15 minutes to Kung fu.
Oh, but then I worried that this plan was so brilliant that surely everyone with a child would make the same plan for an after school frozen treat. So I even made TWO backup plans. First I identified a restaurant near the yogurt shop that had fruit smoothies. And then I always had the public library in my back pocket as well--thanks to a clever coworker for that idea. True, the library does not serve treats, but it has AC, and the kids love it, and it's free!
The kids were aware of plans A and B, but I made no mention of the library idea. Still, as we pulled into a parking spot downtown, Tai asked, "How come we NEVER go to book stores or libraries anymore EVER?". (For the record, it has been about 2 weeks since our last library visit.) I brushed off his criticism of my choice of activity and we proceeded with Plan A. Bookworm that he is, Tai asked to bring his new Superman book into the yogurt shop to read. I said yes. This will be important later in the story.
Much to my delight the yogurt shop did not have a line out the door and even 4 of the 5 tables were empty. "Ha Ha! I must be the only genius in town!" Not really.
Upon entering the shop I immediately noticed (and could not stop from exclaiming loudly) "Oh, there's no air conditioning!!!" Of course the employees heard me and one of them sheepishly explained that it was in fact on (so why was the front door propped open?) while the other employee launched into a much-too-detailed explanation of why they only had three (crappy) flavors to offer today.
Given the limited choices, Tai and Quynh both opted for vanilla. True to form, at the self-serve toppings bar Tai chose fruit and Quynh wanted gummy bears. When I asked Tai what he wanted on his yogurt and showed him the numerous options he pointed to the maraschino cherries and said, "a cherry!". When I asked what else he wanted, my sometimes-greedy and relatively-spoiled child said, "I can have MORE?? Can I have THREE cherries?". In the end I convinced him it would be OK to have several cherries and a few raspberries too. He was delighted.
After sitting there for 15 minutes, sweat literally running down my face and other body parts, we were all ready to get the hell out of there. And it was not nearly time for Kung fu. We all agreed that we needed AC for the next 20 minutes, badly. The library idea crossed my mind right as Tai said, "I bet there is air conditioning in a book store or library." Smart kid. The library is free, but it was a bit further away, and in the opposite direction from the car. But there was a book store right across from the car. Perfect!
The book store was Icy Cold. We sat on the floor and read various books. It crossed my mind to leave without buying anything. But I was soaking up their AC. And my kids do love books. It's not like I was spoiling them with candy or anything. So I said we could get something but they better hurry up and choose, it was time to head to Kung fu. After a lame attempt at negotiation, I ended up buying them EACH a book simply because I did not have the TIME for them to settle on one they both wanted. Let me just say that the 20 minutes of AC cost $1.80 per minute. This put me in a foul mood. Also, we were already running late for Kung fu.
So, Quynh in arms, back into the heat we went, across the street, to the car, rushing, rushing, rushing for Kung fu. We got to the blazing hot car and started to get in when Tai calls out in a panic...(can you guess?) ..."Where is my superman book???"
F$&K!!!!!
I didn't really say that out loud to my kid, but I thought it. "I don't know--Where did you LEAVE it?" and then, "OK, let's go back for it," is what I said in a clearly exasperated voice, along with a mini-lecture about taking responsibility and if we had made it all the way to Kung fu before he realized I would NOT have gone back.
Tai was sure the last place he saw it was the yogurt shop, so back we went and they had indeed put it behind the counter for us. Tai was visibly relieved.
In the end, we made it to Kung fu 15 minutes late for a 45 minute class. I remained grouchy pretty much all the way until we made it home and right into the pool.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Preschool Graduation
Today was Tai's "preschool graduation". They don't call it that, but that's essentially what it is. Thankfully there were no caps and gowns--but the kids got to wear crowns. And who doesn't love to wear a glittery crown? Honestly, I am so thankful for Tai's crown because it helped distract folks from his goofy bangs. Here's what happened:
Last night I noticed that Tai was due for a haircut. But I know (as everyone does) that you never get a haircut the day before a big event because it always takes a few days for the new haircut to look right. For some reason I disregarded this age-old wisdom and got out the clippers anyway. For just a trim.
But while Tai was sitting half-nude on a stool in the living room, watching WonderPets, I got carried away with the scissors. I thought it looked fine when I was done, but after he showered and dried off I realized that I had transformed him into a spitting image of Jim Carrey's character from Dumb and Dumber. Whoops.
Of all the times to get carried away with the haircut -- the day before the Most Important Day of Tai's Life!* So this morning I did what I could to make it better. After dressing him in a nice, new shirt with a collar (and throwing a spare one in my car in case he were to get dirty during the day, the way preschoolers are meant to do) I wet a comb and combed his hair while he ate his breakfast. This is actually not unusual. He frequently wakes with a bit of a rat's nest in the back and the only time he'll let me comb it down is when he's busy eating.
The unusual part is that I surreptitiously applied a little hair product to his bangs in an effort to get them to sweep to the side and stay there. Yes, I dipped into my (expensive) Defining Whip and used it on my five year old son. This is my confession.
* Not really at all. But you get a sense of how I unwittingly became swept up in this whole preschool graduation thing.
Last night I noticed that Tai was due for a haircut. But I know (as everyone does) that you never get a haircut the day before a big event because it always takes a few days for the new haircut to look right. For some reason I disregarded this age-old wisdom and got out the clippers anyway. For just a trim.
But while Tai was sitting half-nude on a stool in the living room, watching WonderPets, I got carried away with the scissors. I thought it looked fine when I was done, but after he showered and dried off I realized that I had transformed him into a spitting image of Jim Carrey's character from Dumb and Dumber. Whoops.
Of all the times to get carried away with the haircut -- the day before the Most Important Day of Tai's Life!* So this morning I did what I could to make it better. After dressing him in a nice, new shirt with a collar (and throwing a spare one in my car in case he were to get dirty during the day, the way preschoolers are meant to do) I wet a comb and combed his hair while he ate his breakfast. This is actually not unusual. He frequently wakes with a bit of a rat's nest in the back and the only time he'll let me comb it down is when he's busy eating.
The unusual part is that I surreptitiously applied a little hair product to his bangs in an effort to get them to sweep to the side and stay there. Yes, I dipped into my (expensive) Defining Whip and used it on my five year old son. This is my confession.
* Not really at all. But you get a sense of how I unwittingly became swept up in this whole preschool graduation thing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)