There is no "kid" in "pool".

This spring keeps getting sucker punched by winter. Every time I'm like, "Hey. Where are my flip flops, anyway?", winter is all like "Sike!" because winter doesn't know that 90's catchphrase was probably really "psych". Also because winter is a punk.

Oh yeah, you're hilarious. Look at me laughing. 

And around here, weather is fairly relative, anyway, because most of us would prefer to remain in a climate-controlled environment at all times. The exceptions are Tristan, who we do not allow outdoors without a squadron of armed guards, and Brynn. Poor, poor Brynn. She would love to be outside in the snow and the rain and the fakey-spring and the summer, but nobody else wants to play out there. "Novel idea," you say, all sneeringly, like a guy named Brad in an 80's movie, "how about you parent and go out there with her?" Listen, Brad. You're lucky I don't have a can of paint or a pie or something right now, because you'd be getting it in the face. I can't go outside, because of nature. So now you understand.

But Brynn has been requesting an outside swimming day for months now, even though indoor swimming days with a blue food color bath seem like a super fun idea to me. Our annual pool strategy is like this: buy a $10 pool, use it for a couple of months, forget about it, throw it away when it's a slimy bowl of horrors. Wait 10 months, repeat. She's been putting the pressure on pretty hard, coming downstairs in her swimsuit on 40 degree days and such. Finally we had some nice days so I planned a trek to Walmart for a new Annual Petri Dish of Fun in the Sun even though it might snow tomorrow. 

That's right, snow. In May. Like I said, I don't care so much, because of the indoor factor. But this poor kid... I bought the pool and I brought it home, only to find that our air pump is lost. So I did what any nutso lunatic would do and blew it up by mouth and then spent 20 minutes trying to take a picture of myself before I realized I was a little high from the pool fumes and the lack of oxygen.

a little help from my friends

I set it up in the backyard, on a deep pillow of dandelions and tall grass, because we don't mow our yard here in Narnia, and I fought the water hose until it came loose and then I laboriously filled the pool I self-inflated with water.

"You do it," she says, "like THIS." 

Brynn was ecstatic. "WAIT," she orders, like I'm about to dive in. "I AM GONNA PUT ON MY SWIMSUIT BECAUSE I'M SO EXCITED AND I'M GONNA SWIM YOU'RE THE BEST MOM IN THE UNIVERSE EEEEEEEEEEE" and so on and then she ran inside and found her suit and put it on and put one foot in the water and said it was too cold and she had decided maybe she didn't feel like swimming.

Just before the War

The pool is now filled, not with humans, but with bathtub toys they will inevitably forget to bring in, and I will end up outside in the snow, collecting Tiny Rabbit because she CAN'T TAKE A BATH WITHOUT TINY RABBIT. 

For the next 10 minutes, they will be enthralled with thinking about getting in the water, and then they'll be done until spring comes again, maybe next week, maybe never. Somehow, it's all totally worth it.