Pules

In Arizona, like much of the Southwest, summer time is hot. Not hot like “oh wow, it’s really warm today,” we are talking blazing hot. Surface of the sun hot. Forget frying an egg on the sidewalk hot, think more like egg evaporating before it hits the ground hot. When Sun-Bun and Pookie were babies and before I returned to work, I would escape the brutal surface-of-the-sun-hot months by retreating to my parent’s home in Canada, where I gladly swapped my SPF 200 for mosquito spray and adding “eh” to the end of all my sentences.

This year is different. Sun-Bun starts kindergarten in August and I am working full-time. This will be the first summer, in five years, that I spend in Arizona. This also coincided with me insisting to my hubby that it was time we get a pool.  I assured him it was a quality of life investment, the quality being he would not have to listen to me drone on at the dinner table about how it was “SO UNBELIEVABLY HOT” but rather listen only to the sweet sound of the children splashing about in the pool singing little songs about how amazing their father is. (I had to pour it on thick.)

And so, we got a pool. A lovely in-ground, deep-end, “oh my gosh, I can’t believe we did it” pool. We were delighted. While it was still filling we frolicked in the three feet of water like giddy children running through a sprinkler. We purchased pool towels and plastic cups and floaties in bulk. Coming home each night, we would strip from our business casual into our swim suits like super heroes morphing into costume.

And then we learned a little secret. Something that pool owners across America must already know. Friends and family are attracted to pools like ants to a picnic. Suddenly my husband, children and I were quite popular. Afternoon pop-ins of bathing suit clad families became the norm. “Oh, I just happened to be in the neighborhood in my tankini and thought I would pop in.”

We gladly agreed to become an oasis in the desert. But, several weeks in to this new role of pool ownership has prompted me to a pen a few pool rules.

Rules of our Pool (I call them ‘Pules’ for short)

My legs. Get shaved at best, once a week. No judging or staring. If you come close to me in the pool expect to get mildly exfoliated.

It’s not cool, to pee in the pool. I made that one rhyme for the kids, but it applies to adults to. If you are on your third ice-tea and haven’t done a slip-slide dance to the restroom, you are staying to balance the PH levels.

BYOB – Stands for Bring your own Bathing Suit. Much like margaritas with a red wine chaser, combining kids, alcohol and water is a bad idea. Parental supervision requires one to be stone-cold sober. Besides, “mommy look at me!” three thousand times an hour creates its own special buzz.

You wanna eat, bring the meat. (I’m really into the rhyme thing)  In order to pay off the pool the kids are going to need to become Olympic swimmers or swim suit models. I am really hoping for my son’s sake, it’s Olympic swimming. So please, bring food, towels, sunscreen, chips, crackers, hot dogs, tofu dogs, whatever turns you on. Just don’t ask me to cook it or clean up afterwards and it will be a great summer.

So there you have it. Rules to swim by. Of  course, with at least twelve more swimming weeks left in the season, I am sure the list is going to grow!