it's (way past) time for a pool post

Our neighborhood pool closed last week, officially marking the beginning of the end of summer. The pool was a big part of our summer routine this year and as such, I have lots of pictures to share.

It took Lauren about a week to really warm up to the pool. Granted, it wasn't terribly warm. We had an unusually cool transition to summer, so it wasn't exactly hot in June.

At first it was a victory just to get her to sit in the water.

She really liked the climbing on the hippo slide. 

She would sit and the top and touch where the water comes out for as long as I would let her. She didn't really like going down the slide, so I had to keep a close eye on her to keep her from clogging the line.

The net--our toy that garnered the most attention from other kids

We got some pool tools which our kids played with about 3 times before they decided that other people had better toys and started to pick up unattended toys when they got the chance. Our toys were still there and only interesting when OTHER kids wanted to use them. I subsequently spent more time this summer keeping track of who was playing with our toys and who the toys my kids were playing with belonged to than I thought possible.

Lauren loved floating on her back.

Depending on the kid, puddle jumpers are awesome. With Lauren, it was money well spent. Once she got used to it, she floated confidently all around the shallow portion of the pool.


It was really fun seeing Lauren take a liking to the water and develop some beginning swimming skills.



I already blogged about Will's swimming lesson experience. His skills continued to expand over the second half of the summer.

For awhile this was the only way he would get his hair wet, but by the final weeks he was getting his head wet each time.

He spent many hours pretending to be various animals--shark, hippo, orca, octopus, snake, etc.

 

 Where's Will?

 

Will always got pretty excited whenever we ran into friends at the pool. And due to the many hours we put in at the pool, we actually made some new friends too.

I made the mistake of packing a snack early in the summer, and it became an expected thing each time we went, no matter how long we were there.

I mean, of course I want to keep them hydrated and nourished. But I don't think an hour trip to the pool after dinner necessarily warrants multiple snacks.

My sister Laura was able to meet us at the pool a few times when she wasn't busy. The kids were always excited to see her and much better behaved when she was around.

I have always loved pools, but with kids each year is different. I had some reservations going into the summer about how I would be able to handle two kids by myself, but the kids did great. This year I am thankful to the pool for effectively wearing out my kids each time we went and keeping my house marginally cleaner than it would otherwise be. Seriously, our house has been more cluttered this week than it was all summer.

'Til next year!