Glory Days

I was thinking about being in high school the other day. Just meandering through nostalgia-ville while on my front porch, where I escape from the children and indulge in my outdoors addiction (smoking).

I thought about the way we approached life back in the day. I thought about responsibilities and the ability to be carefree (and job-free!). I thought about hanging out and going swimming, biking through town, getting ice creams and sodas, eating until we were about to puke.

In between this, I thought about my current, adult schedule, and whether we would be able to find time to take the bug fishing. Could we get the lawn mowed this week, cuz we skipped it last week... Would the back room ever be organized? What about vacations, which we never take cuz we have too many little things to take time off for?

Would I like to go back to the days of no responsibility? Of having no more obstacles in life than the word of my parents? Wait... What?

Did I forget about that? Just for a minute, did I go all Alzheimer's and miss the fact that with great freedom comes great responsibility? Did I misplace the knowledge that I have to work for MY home, MY car, MY time off, MY children, MY choices?

Why, yes; yes, I did. But I'm better now.

Swimming with the Fishes: Tales of the Tickle Shark

Today, I went swimming. And it was a glorious thing.

Bug is the one on the left...

Nevermind that the water was over chlorinated, the room was unventilated, the kids were in need of micro-management, and there were bat-like shrieks reverberating through the room.

As an air sign, I am a born-in-the-water fish. (I know, but it makes sense on some level.) I love the weightlessness and the fact that I can just dive in and enjoy myself.

Today, we had bug, ladybug and the bug-cousin in the pool with us. Ladybug, at 14 mo, was decked out in a floaty-suit. She was totally WTF at first, but she relaxed after a while and enjoyed being hauled around the pool area by Stormcrow. We played a little bit of "Pass the Baby," passing her back and forth between us. And we practiced a little bit of a backfloat.

"Mommy said she'd be right back...
that was half an hour ago..."

The boys, bug and bug-cousin, are 18 days apart. Bug-cousin just turned 5 yo and bug is 4 days away from that mark. We are going to the zoo tomorrow.

I got to be the Tickle Shark. I would swim up to the bug-boys and tickle them while they made their way around the pool. The pool was nice in that it was 3 foot for most of it, and 4 foot only in the middle. But there was a ledge around the edge of the "deep" part so the boys could maneuver through most of it without issue.

I, the Tickle Shark, caught bug several times, at which point he would shriek in delight and attempt to scratch his way to freedom. Bug-cousin (who may be slightly competitive) taunted me that I "couldn't catch him." I proved him wrong, catching him several times.

Adult-type persons...
Comforting, isn't it?

Swimming with kids is a pain in the butt, if you are alone, but when there are more than one adult-type persons, it can be a great way to run off the excess sugar. Not that I would EVER feed the boys slushy floats... Ever.

Tomorrow we shall be doing more sugar and running amok in the zoo. Looks like the monkeys will have some entertainment tomorrow... Woot!