swimming on my own......

School doesn't start until next week for Ty and Spence. Everyone around us has been at it since last week. My original idea was to take the boys to the beach before the fun starts but I knew I wouldn't be able to do it on my own. Ty is 15 and Spence is 12 but they are both taller and much stronger than I am and it would be foolish to try.

Second choice was to bring them to our HOA pool. I had asked a friend to come and bring her three year old to keep an eye on Ty while I would be chasing Spence around. That was a good decision.

I counted on the pool area being empty what with everyone suffering through class already. We had the whole place to ourselves for a few minutes. Some guy showed up to lounge and read a book but I wasn't worried. Until Spence decided that "take off your shoes and your shirt" meant TAKE IT ALL OFF!

Sigh

My worst fears realized. I can handle a lot of things but public nudity isn't one of them. And public nudity when it is your pubescent boys is even worse than anything. My vision blurred and my hearing was muffled as I grabbed those shorts and tried to get them on quicker than Superman in a phone booth.

Ai.......carumba.

The pool trip lasted two hours which is a miracle considering how much energy it took to keep up with the energizer bunny. The beach is definitely a better place to go because it has all those great waves to watch...the noise to muffle the boys' sounds. It sounded like an echo chamber with all that unforgiving tile. We had some mommies show up with itty bitties to play in the baby pool. Not so bad. Spence only lunged for their flotation toy once.

After I was done with the pool I decided to bring the boys back to the house. I wanted to see what would happen and how long they could last.

I made it to 3:00. A mixture of wii sports, youtube, quesadillas and ice cubes filled up their time. Their old respite care provider stopped by to see us all. This brave gal stayed with them for two weeks when we went to Norway all those years ago. SHE IS ONE TOUGH COOKIE!!!



It was just like old times. We could get maybe two or three sentences out before having to redirect the kids. (It feels like there is a Cirque du Soleil production is putting on an all day show in your house and you HAVE to participate). I won't even start on the crazy stuff that happened. It is sufficient to say that the boys had a great time and I was happy to see them enjoying themselves.

Driving them to their house was bittersweet. I got them some In-N-Out to eat in the car since we haven't done that for a month or so. No tantrums or whining while we were driving was great. Spence still thinks it is ok to go over the back seat into the trunk of the minivan while we are on the freeway. He grabbed the emergency water jug and I kept us from crashing while Tyler handed it up to me in the front seat.

I'm grateful that even through he will never NOT unbuckle and climb into the trunk.....he does respond to my command to climb back and buckle back up.

I had the boys to myself from 9: 20 till 3:30 today.

I think we need our own pool.