Swimmin'

The Little Man and I ventured out to our local city pool for the first time this week. We live in a little suburban town adjacent to The City, one of the many towns clustered around and clinging to its coattails. Frankly, I live within 10 minutes of the pools in 3 different cities, but we chose the one of the town where we actually live because

1. It was cheaper - they give you a discount for being a resident, and
2. Sometimes the other city pools check ID and actually won't let you enter if your driver's license doesn't say you're from that town.

I wasn't sure what to expect at the pool - would the Little Man have a huge cow and run screaming from the building after I paid the fee? Is there just one big swimmin' hole there, or would there be a wading pool for the little guys? If there is a wading pool, will the water be visibly green from all the pee, or will it at least appear to circulate enough to dip a toe in?

Turns out we had a lovely time. The pool had a wonderful kiddy pool, completely separate from the main pool. It had all sorts of cool squirty things and fountains, and was complete with a big water slide for the under 4-ft set! (Oh, and proper circulation - the water appeared to be lovely and fresh, even though with that many little guys in it it was most assuredly not). The Little Man loved it! He shivered for the entire 2.5 hours that we were there, but he had a grand old time squirting the squirters, splashing all over the place, and oh the slide, the SLIDE! He couldn't get enough of the slide, even though he kept getting in trouble for going down on his belly (he discovered early on that you go faster that way). He actually begged to go down the really big story-tall covered curly slide in the big-kid pool, but the lifeguards and mommy have rules about that sort of thing.

The only alarming thing about the pool was actually the other swimmers. The copious ink covering the flesh of too many mommies and daddies. The number of 2-and-3-year-old boys wearing actual BLING with their swimsuits. And there were some missing teeth, on people older than 7. Maybe I should have gone to some other city's pool because my neighbors run a little towards the W-T.

Bonus points of the pool - swimming makes little boys really hungry, so he ate a great dinner. And, swimming makes little boys really tired, so the Little Man crashed on the couch right after we put his jammies on. Methinks we're going to be frequent fliers at the pool this summer.