John-Heath Dives In

John-Heath enjoying Jon and Jessie's pool a few days ago.

I really miss having a pool. When we moved in to Nannie's house after she passed away we thought we would be there for a few years or six or seven so we bit the bullet and had a very nice, very large above ground pool installed.

Now, I am generally not a fan of the look of above grounds and, truth be told, I am envious of all of you with in-grounds. I would looovvve to be able to install a large patio area with a nice, big in-ground pool just off our bach porch. However, that is way too cost-prohibitive for us right now. Besides, with an above ground if you get tired of it after several years you can just tear it down and haul it off. That doesn't sound too tacky, does it? Anyway, back to my story.

One of the perks of working for the school system is that you have vacation days at the same time your children do. And as such we thought putting one in would give us -meaning Ren and myself- something to do during the summer to keep from being bored out of our minds. Well, yes, since I decided to gain enough weight to make a whole other me I also liked the idea of not having to take Ren to public pools. That was another selling point.

So, we put the pool in, I found out I was pregnant with John-Heath and within two and half years we had built a house on the back of the farm and moved, leaving behind the pool to be used by the people who rented Nannie's house after we moved out.

I was told we would move the pool over once we got settled. I guess we are still unsettled because there is no pool in my backyard.

Finally, this summer John asked us to decide if we would rather take a trip somewhere or buy a pool. The vote was unanimous - 3 to 1 (John's vote reeeally didn't count anyway, that's why we can say unanimous). We chose the pool. So now we are out pool shopping.

A couple days ago we stopped by Pool and Spa in BG, Ky. This is where we bought our last one. While there John-Heath managed to stick his hands into all the above grounds on display and flick enough water into the air to get his hair pretty much soaked. But the creme de la creme of the shopping trip came when he, while trying to position himself just so in a patio chair set up next to the in-ground pool display, managed to get himself dumped out accidentally from the chair and right smack dab, head first into the pool.

So, from that point on, I began my attempt to stall the salesman on the inside long enough for John to squeeze out the excess water from our son and get him, undetected, to the car, as if he's the only kid to ever fall in a pool at a pool store.

But, like John said, one day we'll look back and laugh, remembering the look on his face when he came up out of the water. I wish I had had my camera with me.