Where You'll Find Us

We have added a new ritual to our daily routine. Once Kelly gets home from work we eat dinner then head to the pool. Last summer I would take the kids swimming during the day and the kids loved it. When you have 2 kids and 2 arms it works quite nice. Now that we have 3 kids and 2 arms it just doesn't seem to work as well. Especially with Miss Daredevil Kora who doesn't care if she can't swim or care if someone is in the pool to watch her or not. She has perfect faith that when she goes in and sinks that someone is going to save her. Thank goodness this has been true so far. Because of this we wait until Daddy gets home, 4 arms and 4 eyes work better with 3 kids. At first we tried the arm floaties with Kora, unfortunately the parent watching her didn't enjoy much because she kept going under. The constant fear of her drowning made it hard to relax. She refuses to stay close to the steps and actually tells us to "GO!" if we get close to her in order to save her. I finally remembered the life jacket I purchased a few years ago for the Kerr family houseboat trip and life is good. Kora can be Miss Independent and Miss Daredevil and Kelly and I can enjoy our swim. We also went the extra mile and put arm floaties on her so she can stay upright. Last night when we put her arm floaties on she was so anxious to go swimming she didn't wait for Kelly to finish putting both floaties on. After Kelly put one on she dove in. The life vest flipped her onto her back and with only one floatie on she couldn't pull herself up. She was screaming and kicking and flailing her arms which made her spin in a circle. We knew she was safe so we started laughing. Eventually she stopped kicking and let Kelly finish putting the other floatie on. I think anyone walking by might see her and call us over cautious but seriously, first, they don't know her and second my kids lives are more important than how silly they may look! Honestly, with a smile like that she'll never look silly and I think she looks darn cute in her head to toe fluorescent orange swim gear.

As for Hunter, he has kept his promise. When that kid tells you he's going to swim and jump in the pool when he turns 4, then he is going to swim and jump in the pool when he turns 4. You would have never thought it possible a month ago. He would scream in terror when Kelly and I took him to the middle of the pool. His idea of swimming was walking on the steps. The arm floaties have given him confidence and allowed him to keep his promise to swim when he turned 4. I had been searching for those arm floaties for weeks. I found some at Target but because they had the Speedo name on them they were almost $8. After nearly giving up I went to the seasonal section at our grocery store (Winco) and found them for 88 cents. I'm so glad we found them because I would guess that Hunter would still be swimming on the steps if we hadn't.

So, next time you try to call and we don't answer we're probably at the pool and thanks to the life vest you may even find us at the pool during the day too!