Nine Steps to Using a Paddling Pool

Sometimes, you just gotta cool down.

These last few days it's been really quite warm, so we've had the paddling pool out for my son to play in.  It's fascinating how he doesn't appear to have any reaction to the coolness of the pool water versus the general temperature, whilst both myself and my wife, when tempted to the water, find it unacceptably cold.  I've theorised that the body acclimatises to the water in a number of steps, as follows:

Step 1: Touching the water with your toe, you say something along the lines of "OH MY GOD THAT'S TOO COLD!!!" and, resistant to your childs' commands, you decide to next to the paddling pool and read a book.

Step 2: Sat next to the pool, you think about just how hot it is, and summarise that it might actually be quite nice to have a paddle.

Step 3: You stand in the pool.  After a few seconds you become used to the water and find that paddling is relatively pleasant, but when you get accidentally splashed up to the knee you flee the pool squealing "It's SO COLD!!!""

Step 4: You reluctantly return to the pool, cautious of splashes.

Step 5: After persistent requests from your child, you kneel down in the pool.  That's cold.

Step 6: Then you sit in the pool. Now THAT'S cold.

Step 7: Your child finds a jug from somewhere, and chucks an entire jug of icy water at you. Blinded and shaking from the freezing water working its way down your torso, you sit in the pool clutching your face, hoping to be able to open your eyes sometime the next day.

Step 8: Your child takes advantage of your inability to see by pouring what seems to be the contents of the Arctic Sea on the back of your head.

Step 9: Congratulations, you are now acclimatised to the water!



Today the weather is far worse, and I look forward to a day determinedly inside :)

The Paddling Pool

We've got a paddling pool (well, actually we've got two, the blogger lifestyle is obviously paying off, next it'll be a private plane) and with it being the summer, it's being used.

My son loves the paddling pool, it's roughly perhaps two foot deep (just over half a metre for metric folk) and its fascinating how the pool, which as I say my son loves, he's never happier than when he's jumping into the pool and splashing around, is actually the coldest object known to humanity.

My son will be happy playing by himself in the pool for a while, but then you'll hear the dreaded cry "Daddy, you can get in the pool!"

My wife is no help, this would be ideal time for her to ask me to clear out the garage or put my shoes away or one of the other many chores around the house that I should do.  But instead she'll say to my son "Of course Daddy can get in the pool! Go on daddy!!"

I trudge upstairs to locate and release the swimming shorts, get changed, and go outside to face my fear.

It's even worse than I'd imagined.  The inflated rectangular pool of icy death, full to the brim of water that I assumed has been freshly imported from either Siberia or Alaska, awaits me.

And in the middle of the pool is my son, splashing like a manic, sending icy daggers of water in all directions.

Gingerly I stand in the pool, my feet demanding to see their lawyers as they dink beneath the depths.

That isn't enough.

"Sit down daddy!!" my son implores.

So you drop to your knees, and eventually plonk yourself square into the pool, the water now lapping somewhere around your tummy, with your legs entering a competition for Frostbite of the Year.

The funny thing is, your body acclimatises, and after a few minutes, it's okay.  But what happens is that only the bits of your body that stay underwater acclimatise, everything that isn't in the water stays totally unprepared, so every time I get splashed the remainder of my body that gets hit with water says "OH MY WORD WHAT IS IT WHY ON EARTH IS THERE FREEZING WATER ON ME?!?"

Nevertheless, eventually you do get used to it, and you actually start having fun, and you even wonder what all the fuss was about.

Until the next time, that is.