Day 4,114—To the Pool with my Kids!—

 

Every day this week, I have slept in until almost 8 a.m. I am in my bed with the door shut, and I can hear my two-year-old ask, “Where dada go?” I blink my eyes and reflect on my dream. I remember it wasn’t as much like a dream but a movie that I watched. I remember events and characters but not having a part to play. 

         I decided right after my run that I would take my kids to the Webster Groves pool for the toddler time. My daughter isn’t a toddler anymore, but she can still go. Felix was supposed to go to daycare, but I had a feeling he should stay home. They both loved going down the slides and playing in the pool. I was thinking how hard it is to go to the pool every summer, and that Vivian needs to take lessons. 

         When I was a kid, it was so important that I learned to swim, but now I don’t swim at all. As a kid, swimming was a routine activity, a rite of passage. Felix surprised me by going down the biggest slide for kids without hesitation. I was walking him to the top, so I had to run down to the bottom to pick him up out of the water. The water wasn’t deep enough that he couldn’t stand, but it wasn’t shallow like the other slides, so his head still went under. When he went down again, he went down on his stomach. I was there when he landed in the water, but I could tell he was a little scared. I asked him if he was okay. 

         “I yove that slide dada!” Then he pointed to this huge slide that wasn’t open yet, “I want to go on that slide, dada!”