water baby

One of my favorite things about summer, other than the time away from school, and the staying up really late (go ahead, admit it, you checked to see when I sent this e-mail and were appalled) is the opportunity to play in the water. I miss the days when I was little enough that a Toys R Us trip would satisfy my desire for a pool. So needless to say, one of our first summer shopping trips was to get Sydney her first pool.

I have two things to say about this process. First of all, my parents never let on that blowing up a kids' pool is a Herculean task. Okay, neither of them is asthmatic, so maybe that's the difference. You'll note in the pictures that this pool is TINY. And yet, I almost gave up and waited for her daddy to get home (all those years of developing higher lung capacity and a tighter ombature playing trumpet would have been handy).

Secondly, baby pools are a lot more fun for the baby. Don't get me wrong, sitting out with my feet in her little pool watching her have a blast was great. But I had a great deal of pool-envy. Sydney got to spend 45 minutes splashing around having a great time and all I got was my feet wet. Yeah, yeah, I know, you practical people out there are about to tell me that I could have shelled out the big bucks for a pool that is large enough for both of us to splash in. My first counter point would be the self-depreciating "they don't make kiddie pools big enough for ME to fit in," and then I would follow that with the more serious point that it's not really the size of the pool. Somewhere along the way, we all become so self conscience and no longer get to sit on our front porches in our bathing suits just splashing around for the heck of it without being mortified that our neighbors will see us. But for this summer, at least, my daughter is far more concerned about having fun in the sun that she is about whether or not her swimsuit makes her look fat.