It's Veteran's Day as well, so pre-school was closed. This meant I could take both twins swimming in the morning instead of just Carl. They have been looking forward to this for days. Even on the monitor this morning, I heard Gretchen laying down the plan for Carl. "There is no school and Mommy is going to take you and me swimming together!" Later on, he gave me his version, "First go to school, then have snack, then both go swimming!" Close enough!
The pool was as empty as usual in the beginning - only the ladies water aerobics class over in the shallowest lap lanes. But, after about a half hour there, 3 boys showed up for a swimming lesson. Then a Dad with 2 kids, another Mom with 2 (rough) boys and a grandmother with 2 kiddos. So, we put on our swim vests and headed to the 8.5 foot part for a lot of jumping and swimming around with more room. We did go back to the shallow end eventually, but it was already about an hour and 15 minutes since we had arrived. I was going to stay another 15 minutes, but one of the rough kids threw one of those plastic rings that sinks so you can dive for it and he hit Gretchen on the shoulder. She cried a lot. I know she was getting tired and hungry, so we decided that was the catalyst to dry off and head for home. The mom did make her son apologize, but it was a struggle for her to get him to do it. Gretchen was so gracious she even said, "Thank you for saying you're sorry." The other kid was taking in mouthfuls of water and spitting them out like a fountain. These boys were like 2 & 4. 4 hit Gretchen. 2 was spitting. She kept telling 2 to stop the spitting and even threatened him at least 3 times with a time out for doing it. Guess what he did? He spit right at her face. Guess what she did? Nothing. Nothing at all. I will admit, I was glad to be heading for home because I didn't want to get fountain spat on by some stranger's kid. We thanked the lifeguard and hit the locker room.
We changed and talked to a sweet lady in the dressing room. She was using a hair dryer and Gretchen was fascinated. The lady said she was going shopping, so Gretchen of course, told her that we weren't going shopping today in the rain but that we didn't have any celery and we needed to go shopping very soon to get more celery! Oh, the neglect this child suffers! After asking me their ages, she said she has a 4 yr old grandson and she told me she got a kick of out listening to me talk to these 2. "You told them not to run around like 2 maniacs." She said it was all stuff she must have said at one time herself, but hearing me say it struck her as cute and funny. (phew!) And, they weren't running at all... they were very good in the locker room today!
We got to drive through lots of cool puddles on the drive home! Then, once we got to the house, we discovered there was a lake separating us from the front door. They didn't need to be asked twice if they wanted to jump in the puddles!! So, we played and splashed and danced with Ida for quite some time before going in to dry off again and get some lunch. I snapped a few pictures, then put the camera inside and got in on the fun.
We got home about noon and this is how the pond behind our house looked then. The water table was overflowing, so that is about 6" deep. No wonder the pond was in our backyard!!
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