That Was So Fun Let's Do It Again

On Saturday morning I awoke feeling optimistic. The holiday weekend lay before me and I wasn't sure what we had planned, but I wanted to do something fun. I wasn't sure what it was going to be, but I just wanted to do....something. Anything.

When Mr. Daddy announced that he would be doing projects around the house all day, my hopes were slightly dashed. BUT, it was a gorgeous day and I was bound and determined that we were going OUT. However, we live in the middle of nowhere and with gas prices being what they are we had to stick fairly close to home.

Fortunately, there is a gorgeous state park near my house -- $3 per car to get in the park-- and they just so happened to have opened their pool on Saturday. I announced loudly to whoever was listening that my children WOULD NOT lie around like broccoli all day in front of the television, so I suited everyone up, sunscreamed (as Punkin says) everybody and headed off to the pool at the state park near my house.

We arrived and changed Punkin into her swim diaper and bathing suit. We probably could have skipped the swim diaper, but Punkin is in that very unpredictable time during potty training where sometimes she seems to get it and sometimes it's like we just started. I mean, usually she has no problem dropping her "friends" off at the "pool," but the peeing, well, we're just not there yet. And I didn't want Punkin to drop her friends off in this pool, so we put on the swim diaper.

So, we finally headed over to the kiddie pool, a prerequisite since neither of my kids can swim and I don't know about you but I don't want to wrangle two non-swimmers in any water over a foot deep. I don't have that kind of strength or patience. I might add that the kiddie pool was alllll the way at the end of the big pool and around a little corner. And we proceeded to have a great time until Punkin decided she had to go potty. And since there was no one to watch Bubba, we all had to trek alllll the way back to the potty.

Where Punkin decided that she did not, in fact, have to go after all. However, I did make her at least get up there and try, during which time I managed to let go of her for one second and during which nanosecond she fell, sort of, into the potty. Which at the time she found very amusing.

We do the wet swimsuit pull up struggle and then we trek alllll the way back to the kiddie pool, where we play happily for, oh, about five minutes before I hear "Mommy, I need to go potty."

And here we go again. Wash, rinse, repeat, minus the falling in but add in a little amusement-turned-- terror of falling in the potty that seems to have appeared in the five minutes between bathroom visits.

Back to the kiddie pool. Rumble, rumble, rumble. Guh-reat. Thunder. Which in pool-speak is "Everybody out of the pool!" Pool rules mandated that we had to clear the deck for at least twenty minutes after the last rumble of thunder. Again, guh-reat. Fortunately, I had planned ahead and brought snacks and drinks in the car, so we headed allll the way back out to the car.

Where we waited. And waited. And waited. After a good twenty minutes I finally spotted someone coming out of the office. "Is the pool going to re-open soon?" I asked.

"Oh, we're on pool break now. It'll be another twenty minutes." WTH? Why couldn't they have done pool break during the twenty thunder minutes? The kids barely tolerated the thunder break, but add the pool break on top of that and we were done for.

That pretty much sums up the day. Well except for these minor events: an aborted trip to the playground, some sandy, pee-filled Frocs (faux Crocs) due to my rookie decision not to change Punkin back into a regular pullup, some fear of loud toilets (Bubba), a refusal to enter the ladies restroom so Mommy could do the flushing (see: Bubba above), a meltdown of titanic proportions (see: pee filled Frocs, lack of more snacks), a bleeding, scraped knee (Punkin), a toddler chase (Mommy, Punkin) and one pissed off Mommy (self-explanatory).

I can't wait to do it again next weekend.