Swim little fishes, SWIM

It's summer and that means it is HOT and HUMID and SWEATY and therefore there must be water to play in. Either the beach or a pool. Hell, on a really hot day a puddle will do. This spring on the very first day it was warm enough, I pulled out the baby pool.



Wow. Really small. Too small for anything but funny pictures of nekkid baybees. It was fun for about 3 minutes and then Thomas leaned on the edge and all the water poured out. Yay.

Then, my Nana bought the kids this.



Hey! Bigger! Bigger means more fun, right? Woohoo! Splashy-splash! But honestly? Two kids and one mom = not enough pool. And sitting on the deck while everyone ELSE gets to have aquatic fun mean Mommy stays HOT and HUMID and SWEATY.

Then, Daddy-O came home with this ginormous thing:


"Warning: objects in the photo are bigger than they appear"

He handed me the box, which weighed approximately 200 pounds, and said here, blow this up! It'll be fun!

Excuse me? Oh. You have me confused with someone who wants to spend the next 3 months of her life BLOWING UP A POOL. Uh-huh, someone with the lung capacity of MICHAEL PHELPS. So I did what all good suburbanites do in crisis. I went to Walmart and got this:



It still took like 30 minutes but I got the thing inflated, completely burning out my triceps in the process, and filled it up.

I have to say, climbing into that pool and being able to stretch out and sunbathe while the kids splashed around was pretty nice. I was in love with its inflatable bench that works so well as a pillow and the cupholders for my *ahem* iced tea. As an added bonus, the walls are really tall so the kids can't climb or fall out. We splashed and played and Thomas poured water out of cups and poured water out of cups and poured water out of cups, and Emmie did her best to drink the pool dry, but once I started getting all prune-y and Emerson's lips turned blue I knew it was time to get out. Hey, no need to wear it out the first day, we have all summer!

The next day I walked out on the deck to check the water temp and found this:



Blechhh! How did green mold grow OVERNIGHT? Look at all those leaves! I'll have to drain it! Clean it! Bleach it so my kids don't contract cholera!

Suddenly, the pool became...work. Oh faaaabulous. It's a beautiful daaaay. The kids are going to want to swiiiimm. Beh.

Every time Emmie spots the pool she points and shrieks. Thomas sees it and kicks and wiggles and gets all wide-eyed. Mommy then makes some lame-ass excuse and rushes everyone into the house. "Pool? What pool?? Oh, that nasty germ-filled mosquito hatchery on the deck? Silly kids. We can't play in that. It's too dirty!" Fortunately neither kid has figured out my game yet.

This experience has taught me a valuable lesson. That in-ground swimmin' hole the hubs and I keep talking about? The cee-ment pond we want in the backyard? Not gonna happen. Unless it comes with a pool boy. THEN we can talk.