Summer officially begins in our house when the pool is open and ready for action. That happened in early June. Too bad it wasn't warm enough to use the pool. The week before my dad got the pool open it was in the upper 80s and 90s. By the time the pool opened it had dropped into the low 70s.We still got in the first day. The kids lasted about 20 minutes before their teeth were chattering and their lips were turning blue. Every day the kids came and asked if it was over 80 degrees, my prerequisite for swimming. It never was but I still let them go in if it was at least 78. Their swimming was only for a half hour before they were too cold but they had so much fun.Both Meagan and Owen can now touch the bottom of the pool and have tossed aside their floaties. Meagan is now swimming under water like a fish and doing flips off the ladder. Owen, I think is part dolphin, and would live in the pool if we let him. He is in there every chance he can get and loves everything about swimming.Brenna was terrified of the pool. After a near drowning experience at Brady's Run Park when she was 3 she has refused to get near deep water. She only got in the pool twice last summer and cried the whole time and wouldn't go past her knees in the lake up at Aunt Dar's house (where Owen was jumping off of the pantoon in the middle of the lake). Finally we found something that makes Brenna feel secure in the water...Owen's old floaties.We tried every other flotation device we had and nothing satisfied her. Then the other day I insisted she try the floaties despite her reluctance. Within 5 minutes she was calm and floating around the pool. What a change. Earlier in the day she was screaming bloody murder about being in the pool and by the end of the day she was begging to go back in. She has gone swimming every day the last three days and is even starting to go under water.Nora loves the water, too. She has a nifty swim suit that has an inner tube right in it. She gets in that and just starts a kicking away. But she gets cold quickly (even in our recent spurt of 90 degree temps). When we tell her it is time to get out to warm up in the sun she starts screaming. At one point we had her screaming to get back in and Brenna screaming to get out. It was pretty funny, although extremely loud.
