The other day I was at the pool with the two younger kids. It was adult swim so we were in the baby pool.
The baby pool wasn’t too crowded, maybe just two or three other families. I try not to let my kids be too wild in the baby pool because of all the toddlers around, but water does move around and it sometimes goes into kids’ faces. And when it does I often feel annoyed at the kid doing the splashing. How dare they get water on my precious child?!?! And then I want to pull my kids away from the splashing kids.
But this day, my kids were the ones doing the splashing and they happened to splash a little kid, she appeared to be maybe four years old. She gave a little cry of anger and ran to her mom. Immediately I turned to my kids to tell them to stop splashing in the pool, even though they didn’t mean to splash the four year old.
And then I heard the mom of the four year old say to her kid, “I’m sorry you got water in your face; pools are splashy places.”
And it made me stop and realize the deep wisdom of her words. It seems so obvious but sometimes I forget: Pools are splashy.
Often, I want to do everything to prevent my kids from splashing or getting splashed in the pool; I want to move them far away so they won’t get water in their face and experience any discomfort. I want them to have an unblemished pool experience. But I just loved how that mom at the pool didn’t take her kid out of the pool or try to tell her that she shouldn’t have been splashed. She didn’t pretend that the pool was a place where no one would get splashed.
Pools are splashy places. But I’ll be right here with goggles or a towel or hugs or whatever you need to get back out there and play. Pools are splashy places, but they are also places of fun, joy, and bravery.
Pools are splashy. Life is messy. Love can hurt. It’s all just part of coming to the pool, living life, loving someone.
Pools are splashy places! What a perfect metaphor for life. Thanks for sharing this <3
Thanks for reading!
This is so great! I mean, it’s great for life generally, but also, what a lesson that mother is teaching her child, about taking places for what they are. Whew.
I know. I don’t know why it had never occurred to me before to let my kids also accept the fact that pools will be splashy!
Pools are splashy!!
When the kids were little I remember this woman getting all riled up because someone (not one of my kids, but still) splashed water on her and her book as she sat poolside. And I remember thinking…you’re at a children’s pool. But it kind of stuck in my head and then a while later we were at a different pool and my kids were jumping in. I apologized to one woman who got splashed from their jump and she was like “it’s a pool?” It just goes to show it’s all in the attitude and also, POOLS ARE SPLASHY!
Man, I used to hate getting splashed, but life is so much better once I accepted the reality of it.