Pool Party!

[brigid]

Our friends’ child, L, turned 3 this weekend (and we also got to visit her brand new baby sister, J), so it was POOL PARTY TIME!!!!! The party was on Saturday and started exactly as Nesko got off work. Oops. My mother in law was kind enough to give us a ride up to his work, which is closer to where the party is than our house is. That afternoon I got the really cool book we were going to give her and paged through it prior to wrapping it up. I’m really glad I did because it was a book with moving parts and somebody had broken one of the parts. They’d twisted an elephant’s head clean off. WHAT. Man! Don’t you just hate it when you’re on top of everything and have it all arranged conveniently and then suddenly BAM! Nuh uh. Back to square one. So we arranged for a quick trip to Toys R Us first.

I should note: Niko woke up way early that morning, but looked and acted incredibly sleepy. I encouraged him several times to lie down and rest a bit but he declined each time. “I can’t rest mama! I’m too excited about the POOL.”

So we get to Toys R Us and Niko’s talking about the different toys he will get for L. Dinosaurs! Obviously she loves dinosaurs. I mean, if HE loves dinosaurs SHE will too, right? Ooooh, or TRAINS. She’d love a train, wouldn’t she? OBVIOUSLY SHE WOULD. If Niko likes a thing everyone else will like a thing too, right? OF COURSE. He finally settled on a small set of tiny dinosaur figures and then got distracted by a display train table and wandered over there to play with it, scooting trains around and pondering aloud just how likely L would share the dinos with him. Maybe she’d share them a lot. Maybe she would let him take them HOME with him. She likes to share, right? She’d share them with him, right? I explained him what sharing is and isn’t and that if he gave these tiny dinos to her they’d be HERS and MAYBE she’d play with them with him while they were together, but they were HERS and she would KEEP THEM and they would LIVE AT HER HOUSE. And then I picked out a stuffed triceratops for her, because Niko was still insisting on a dinosaur theme for her presents, and made the command decision to drop $5 on tiny dinos for him. Which I think was a good decision, he loves those tiny dinos.

He picked out the card for her. “OH!” he said. “I LOVE YOU PONIES!” he said. “This is Rainbow Dash,” he pointed out, “and this is Pinkie Pie and they are MY FRIENDS. They are PONIES and they are MAGIC and I LOVE THEM.” The card had stickers in it, too.

So we get to the party, and we’re an hour late, but we’d told our hosts the situation ahead of time so it wasn’t super rude but rather an unavoidable thing, and Niko spends most of the party either with his face pressed against the big glass windows over looking the pool, reminding us that he REALLY REALLY REALLY WANTS TO GET IN THAT POOL DOWN THERE, or causing trouble.

Here is a list of the trouble that he caused:

• Wandered down to the pool, took his shoes off, left them there, and came back.
• Repeatedly stole helium balloons/balls from the birthday girl
• Ripped the string off a helium balloon so it floated up to the twenty foot high ceiling and nestled there against the decorative beams
• Flipped his shit when certain presents were being taken out to the car because he wanted to play with them
• Ate the strawberry off someone else’s cupcake like it weren’t no thing
• Refused to share his tiny dinos and pushed people who came near them

But he also did adorable things like hug people like it was going out of style, and gently stroke the baby and call her pretty and cute, and bring people cupcakes without them asking.

So the party ends, and everyone cleans up the party room, and Nesko spends like half an hour holding the baby. And then it’s time for the pool!

No lie, it’s been like 2 years since I was last in a pool.

I dug out my bathing suit and found I had not one but TWO bathing suits, both purchased at Target clearance sales, both tankinis. One is brown and white and has trunks (!!!) and a halter top and one is a skirted number with a halter top. I’ve always loathed skirted suits because really, they are very much about HIDING YOUR BODY’S SHAME. Your disgusting fat ass! Your disgusting fat thighs! HIDE THEM AWAY FROM VIEW, YOU MONSTER!!! The only reason I got it was because it was the only bottom left in my size. I tried it on for the first time and internets, I felt like a pretty princess in it. I did a little spin. But I elected to wear the trunks. So we’re there, and we get into the pool, and ahhhh bliss. Ahhh heaven. We had a floaty thing for Niko that went around his chest and circled his arms and kept him floating and bobbing pretty well, and he practiced floating on his back and we towed him around and he kicked a bunch and objected MIGHTILY when water got in his mouth, nose, or eyes. Or ears. Or on his head. But other than that he had fun, until he stopped having fun and wanted to just get out and play with tiny dinos again.

We should have called it a day at that point, but our friends invited us to a barbecue and we lingered and there were many Niko-flavored melt downs and we got home way too late. We pushed it too far. We flew too close to the sun. We stayed up way too late. But eh. It was pretty fun!

I really miss pools and swimming. I love the water so, so much. I basically need to meet someone who lives close to us and who has a pool, and I will befriend them solely to use their pool but maybe in time true friendship and love will flourish and anyway I can bring tasty baked goods to the table and don’t care of they use me for my cookies.

What I don’t love is getting out of the pool OH GODDDDD GRAVITY WHYYYYYYY and water in the ears, which I currently have in my right ear, which is kind of ironic because I have hearing loss in my left ear so THAT is the ear I’d rather get pluggedup because it’s a crap ear anyway. So I’ve been saying “what” a lot and pawing at my head. BUT WORTH IT. OH GOSH SO WORTH IT.

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

Comments

[kayote]

I love skirted swim suits. Normal suits tend to ride up over my hip bones, and creep up my butt. I thumb my nose at entire idea that I want someone looking at my butt. Also most suits are cut such that there is a strong push for me to shave, which leads to prickle and uncomfortable or constant shaving.

Screw that, I'll take a skirt.