Flick Park Pool

Nikko's ESY report: He liked marching around the room singing "The Ants Go Marching." I wonder if Nikko liked the rhythm, and if he was able to contain himself from breaking into a gallop or a run if everyone was marching in a circle. At home, especially in the basement, Nikko, Ronin & Denis (and Audrey as of late) love to chase each other in a circle at breakneck speeds. Ronin's legs have gotten stronger and he's able to run really fast. Audrey is running, too, but her little legs can't go as fast as her will so she keeps tripping and falling splat on her tummy, but gets up as the boys trample over her limbs. What a trooper.

This afternoon Tianna came over and we packed up the kids to go to the kiddie pool at Flick Park. I'm trying to pack sensibly and lighter, but this is essentially what I decided to carry:
Backpack - dry changes of clothes: t-shirt and shorts x3, dry diapers, EpiPens, chewable Benadryl, my wallet/camera/cell phone/lipstick case, sunscreen, plastic bags
Food bag - 3 Thermos bottles, 1 Nalgene bottle w/extra juice, container of crackers, container of Oreos, bag of rice cakes
Shoulder bag - hats, baby wipes, dry swim diapers
3 beach towels, 1 bath towel (kept 1 beach towel and the bath towel in the car)
The double stroller helped to cart everything around.

When it was time to get into the car, Nikko didn't shun the navy Crocs I put on his feet. He tried to take them off by stepping on them, but I quickly shuffled him out the door so he had to walk with them. I'm just surprised because the last time I tried to put Crocs on him, he ran to get his shoes and shoved them into my hands. I hope this warmer weather will encourage Nikko to ditch the socks and shoes, which he's used to wearing throughout the year since that's what they encourage him to wear at school. The weather was sunny and warm, but a breeze kept coming around to make things chilly. The Penepacker girls met up with us and played with their cousins while going back and forth between pools. It figures when we arrived at 2pm that the pool was having a 10-minute pool break. Nikko was anxious to go into the pool but somehow I was able to coax him to sit in a chair while I put sunscreen on him, ever so slowly. Once the pool break was over, I ceased to exist. My kids had a great time, and I felt better knowing that the water was exactly where Nikko wanted to be. I felt guilty about last week's Pirate Cove disaster so I wanted to make up for it this week. Ronin and Audrey wore long-sleeved rash guard shirts that worked beautifully. No sunburn on those arms or backs! Nikko stood splashing the water by stomping for some time. It took him a while to warm up to the kiddie slide, but once he did he was on it for many repetitions. Seeing Nikko on the slide gave Ronin the courage to try it, and when Nikko was done, Ronin dominated the slide next. There was a line of water shooting from the side of the pool that formed a tunneled arc and Nikko enjoyed crawling under the arc without breaking the water line and getting soaked. I watched him from afar and saw him stimming off one of the arcs of water, staring at it with his eyeballs mere centimeters from the stream of water. When the second pool break hit at 3p, I decided it was snack time so the kids munched on Oreos. After we returned to the pool I noticed that Audrey was starting to shadow me more and was whining just a little bit. She was probably getting tired from walking through the foot-deep water so it was almost time to go. I dried her off and put her in the stroller, and Tianna helped round up Ronin. I was drying Nikko off when he realized that we were totally finished, so he started protesting. I got a little stressed about him wanting to return to the water but luckily I fished around in the backpack and found my stash of DumDum lollipops. That calmed Nikko down and he sat in the stroller quietly. *whew!* He didn't sleep on the way home, unlike his sibs, but later in the living room he fell asleep sitting upright on an ottoman. Regrettably, it was at 6p so I had to wake him up with tickles and just being annoying. If he continued with a deeper nap, it would ruin his bedtime sleep. He was pretty mad at me for waking him up, but at bedtime he was so tired that he fell asleep while I read him a story. Perfect.