Swimming Adventures

Dean experienced both the joys and frustrations of the public swimming pool for the first time today. I bought a very wonderful and clever flotation device for him a couple of weeks ago and decided that this was the perfect opportunity to use it.

His afternoon nap was interrupted by a poopy diaper and he wasn't looking like he'd go down again, so we lathered up, donned our suits and headed off to the pool.

There are only two public pools here. One is a regular pool with no bells and whistles. The other is more of a "kids pool" that has a big water slide and multiple fountains; the deepest location is around 4'. I drove by the regular pool first since it was closer and I thought there'd be less people. When I got there, I discovered it was TINY and packed. I swear most HOA pools are this size or bigger! (At least that's what it looked like from my car.)

So we continued on to the other pool. Just as I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed Dean had fallen asleep. Dang. I decided that if he woke up when I turned off the car we'd go in. If he didn't wake up, I'd turn it back on and go home. He woke up, so we ventured in. Surprisingly, it was busy, but not packed.

After paying our $2 I sat Dean down on a lounge chair while I got out his ladybug flotation and blew it up. When we first went into the pool Dean started crying. I think the pool temperature was his main displeasure. I set him up in his floaty and got him calmed down enough.

After we'd been in the water about 5 min. and he was finally enjoying himself, one of the lifeguards came over and said, "Excuse me. You're not allowed to use that flotation here. It's not approved by the coast guard." By the coast guard??? "I don't know if any of our life jackets are small enough for him, but would you like me to try and find one?" So now you're saying a life jacket that is too big for an infant is safer than this flotation that will obviously keep him above the water? Or that me holding him will be safer? Give me a break. "No. I'll just hold him."

So my cute little flotation was set up on that lounge chair and I just held him the whole hour. We still had fun. He enjoyed bouncing up and down, in and out of the water, and he figured out how to splash me. I got him to lay on his back, though he kept his head cocked up out of the water.

Oh how I wish we had $20K for a pool. We have ample room in our backyard. Or if we just had an HOA pool. What am I paying them for anyway?! We have no perks to show for the money we give them every year.

We will go back though. It was much better than the little frog pool in our back yard.