swim

   When I was a kid, our family would take vacations to Assateague Island - home of the wild ponies.  I don't like camping and those vacations are probably the reason why.  Almost every memory I have of camping has to do with rain - torrents of rain that caused the tents to flood.  Mosquitoes. Hard ground.  Ugh.  I like basic amenities - flushing toilets, a bed that is not water logged, not having to tramp through the grass to go to flushing toilets.  I think my folks felt the same way because after 3 or 4 years, we started staying in a nearby hotel.
    Awesomeness!!!
    Because there were 4 kids, Mom and Dad always got adjoining rooms.  Again, AWESOMENESS for us kids because we got to have a TV all to ourselves!  Non stop cartoons!  On CABLE!   As an adult, I realize that this is just another indicator of how smart my parents were. I find my adult self telling them how smart they were back then (and still are). 
   Sun, sand and water.   Flushing toilets, beds, this place even had continental breakfasts. It was a vacation everyone could enjoy!  And we were at the beach so the fact that the hotel (as did most reasonably priced hotels at the time) didn't have a pool wasn't an issue.
    Move ahead (um, how old am I? - start mental calculations) about 25 years, you kind of expect a pool. Standard.  Now, however, we are going to be looking for pools with a lift.
     You should have seen the kids'  faces when Daddy got in the pool with them. They climbed all over him. 
     Of course, they also wanted to push the button that made the lift lower him into the water.  I am all about letting my kids "help" but . . .
     I will admit the lift made me nervous, you can see that there are no sides and just a rinky belt.  I had visions of him falling sideways in the water or worse, against the edge of the pool (reading this will be the first time he is privy to those thoughts) but I should have trusted him more.  He has a better sense of balance now.  I am so very proud of him for getting in the pool with just me and the kids there.  I would have been nervous but Sam gets his fishy tendencies from somewhere and it isn't me so I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised at my adventurous guy!