Keeping cool at the pool

Over the weekend we took the boys to the pool for our First Family Pool Outing of the season. Last year we took the older boys several times without Jake (one or the other of us stayed home with him), because he was only about 8 weeks old and didn't tolerate it very well.

This year, it seems like it's going to go much better. He's already a big fan of water in whatever form it takes, whether the bath tub, the sprinkler, the hose, the baby pool ... he loves it all. Here he is testing out the Infant Floatation Device that he hated last summer:




He's really more OK with ALL the aspects of the pool this year, even having sunscreen applied. He didn't fuss at all or resist as I sprayed it on and rubbed it in, and I expected THAT to be a battle of epic proportions. Nope. Cool as a cucumber.



Until, that is, I tried to take a break to put on my OWN sunscreen before ferrying him to the pool itself. THAT was an unpopular decision.



This kid is going to have some seriously strange forehead wrinkles when he's 80 if he keeps it up with the crying.

When I looked at that last picture, I was struck by how much he's slimmed down since last year. He was a LARGE, IN-CHARGE infant. Now he looks downright LEAN. Here he is last summer at the pool ... he was about 10 or 11 weeks old here:


MY BABY HAD MAN BOOBS. When I look at that, he seems like he must have been almost as big as he is today, but I know he wasn't. He was merely three times the size of all OTHER babies his age.

Here's Nathaniel doing a "cannonbomb" off the side of the pool.


Last year he couldn't touch the bottom without a good portion of his head going under the water, so we couldn't leave his side at all. This year, he's grown a LOT. I knew he had based on his clothes fitting differently this year, but his ability to move around the pool on his own this year REALLY cements it for me.



Nick is still using floaties, but he's well on his way to becoming just as good of a swimmer as Nathaniel. He uses floaties part of the time, but he can kick and swim underwater for short distances, too.




All in all, we're looking forward to getting our money's worth out of our pool membership this year!