1.  Lifeguards

2.  The Juicy Child

3.  Monster Powers

By The Flume at our local pool there is a notice saying No Jewellery, No Contact Lenses, No Goggles etc.  The Lifeguard who has to stand at the top watching punters going down has his eyebrow pierced with a bar.  One of his colleagues has a hoop through her upper lip.  Another of his colleagues is so young that he’d be allowed on the lifeboat first with the women.  And there was a small round turd on the floor in one of the changing rooms.  I took Son 2 aged 14m to the Babies and Toddlers session and he was great.  He floated along when I swam him, he played in the noodle, he got out (often) and crawled off so I had to get out the pool to get him back.  He splashed.  He watched.  He pointed at the stairs. He tried to climb up the walls.  He lay on my front while I swam backwards.  And then he put his head on my shoulder, eyes still wide and watching.  So we came out, and he was asleep by the time we got home. 

Then I went up with Son 1 aged 4y 1m.  And we played for more than an hour and a half.  He was an alien seahorse.  The noodle was seaweed, until I pretended to eat it up, when he shouted “It’s Meat!” and cackled because Mummy’s a vegetarian.  I was a mermaid and he was a pirate. Again.  I was a  sea turtle.  He was a crocodile.  I was the Enormous Crocodile, and he was a Juicy Child.  We played with surf boards, we bounced in the waves, he climbed out and jumped in.  Towards the end of the time we met one of our Friends and her family - with (of course) a four year old boy. We haven’t seen them since the Birthday Party, so it was good to catch up.

The Man made Toad in the Hole for tea, and Son 2 wanted to play out front.  So the boys and I spent an hour outside.  Son 2 scrunched on the gravel, hauled himself up by the railings and twinkled at the passers-by.  We saw two sets of neighbours,  runners, dogs, and an old lady from the other end of the Terrace out with her New Hip.  Son 1was the Mysterious Lifeguard with Monster Powers, protecting our houses with his fire sticks, which set everything on fire except of noses.  It was noisy, it was elaborate, it involved twigs and dracaena leaves and quite a few stones landing very near me and Son 2.   Son 2 managed his tea, and asked for and ate extra sausages.  It works better when he can’t smell the cooking - we at last avoided Sunday evening melt down.