How To Survive A Pool Trip
in Giggles on July 5, 2016
Welcome to my new JULY SUMMER BLOG SERIES…How to Survive! The Summer is upon us. We can no longer deny that! In fact, I would wager, at many houses, the newness of the summer and the excitement of “No School” has worn off in its entirety and has left you, the parent, scrambling for ideas.
Have no fear, my new summer series is here!
Wow, that even sounded cheesy for me. I apologize. Over the next several weeks in July, I will unveil a new How To Survive post to keep your summer going. Included in these posts are my top five tips to help us all deal with the topics at hand. The tips listed may not be the end-all-be-all, but they are tried and true, and have worked for me in the past. Enjoy them, use them and most of all…SHARE THEM WITH YOUR FRIENDS! Here we go…
How to Survive the Pool:
1. The Pool Bag. You need a durable, functional and BIG pool bag. I have a friend of mine who sells Thirty-One. I could fit one of my children inside our pool bag. It’s terrific. It holds all five of our towels, plus snacks, water, sunscreen and goggles…plus, I can still throw it over my shoulder. It is also monogrammed (as are our towels-yes, I am that mom), so I always know which bag is ours at pool parties, beach sides or the lake.
2. A Summer Cast. This is NO FUN, let me just say this right off the bat, but IF you find yourself staring down the business end of a broken kid over the summer, it is not the end of the world. At the writing of this post, I have TWO kids that are injured enough to stay out of the water. Life with boys is rarely dull. A week and a half ago, my youngest son broke his left ankle at the growth plate. He is now the proud owner of a knee-down-camo-colored cast. Thankfully, casts today are MUCH different than they were twenty years ago…his is waterproof. Three days ago, my oldest son ruptured his right ear drum during a wake boarding accident while at the lake with friends. He absolutely, unequivocally cannot get his head wet. How do we keep him entertained? We have been using silicon-wax-based earplugs, so that he can NEAR the water without water getting inside his ear, and we’ve been playing a lot of inside games. If you find yourself with a broken kiddo, now might be a great time to dust off Monopoly, LIFE, and Pictionary.
3. Pool Games. Speaking of games, do you remember the games we used to play as kids? Games like, Marco Polo and Fish Out of Water? I used to have so much fun playing those. Lately I have been watching my teenage son and his friends spend hours (and I do mean HOURS) in our backyard swimming pool tossing a NERF football back and forth. That’s it. Just tossing a ball. Go to Wal-Mart and buy a package of dive sticks or dive rings, and watch the kids come together at the neighborhood pool. Kids flock together over toys. They make up their own games. It is really is the most genius thing about being a kid.
4. Backyard Pool vs Neighborhood Pool. When I was growing up, my backyard pool was about six inches deep and about three feet wide. We didn’t live in a master-planned community that had a neighborhood pool. If I wanted to go swimming, I had to wait to be invited to someone’s house who actually had a real pool. When my husband and I got married and began looking for a house, the one thing I wanted was a POOL. We live in Texas…and it is HOT here. We swim nine months out of the year down here. We also, actually DO live in a community with a neighborhood pool. So which is better? They are BOTH amazing. The community pool has people there…lots of kids and other parents for you to socialize with. Your kids get to make new friends, and so do you. Neighborhood pools have lifeguards. Even IF you have a pool in your backyard, go hang out at your neighborhood pool every once in a while and meet some of your neighbors. You need friends just as much as your kids do. A backyard pool is fantastic for obvious reasons: there are no people there, it is quiet, you can have your own pool party. But who wants to live a solitary life? Be social! It’s summertime!
5. Skin Care. Sunscreen. Sunscreen. Sunscreen. Even if you are not going to spend ALL day in the sun, LOTION your kids, and by lotion, I mean LOTION. Do NOT spray them. Take the time to actually rub the lotion on them. It works ten times better. I learned this the hard way. Several years we bought a boat (we have since sold it). The very first time we took it out, all FIVE OF US fried like chicken legs in hot grease because of the sunscreen I used. I sprayed us…repeatedly…but it was spray sunscreen nonetheless. Now, whenever we are outside, we use Hawaiian Tropic sunscreen SPF 60, it comes in an orange or yellow bottle.
It is super thick, doesn’t really smell that great, works like a charm. No sunburn. We call it “boat sunscreen.” My kids HATE being rubbed down with sunblock. They hate it. They are teenagers. However, they hate being sunburned even more. Protect your kids’ skin. Also, use some sort of aftersun care on your babies once your summer pool day is over. The chlorine in pool water is so drying on skin, they need something to replenish and renew from the outside. Any aftersun lotion will do the trick, unless you’re dealing with a sunburn. If that’s the case, you’ll need something green with aloe.
Well, there you have it! Those are my top five survival tips for the pool. Be sure to drink PLENTY of water. We don’t need y’all getting dehydrated out there!! Have fun…and stay safe!! Let me know how your summer is going!
Here’s hoping your day is SUNNY and BRIGHT!
-Dallas