Hey Mom, watch me! Watch me!!!!

Here it is, mid-August, and it's only just in the last week been warm enough to go to the pool. I guarantee, if we had cancelled our pool membership back in May it would have been the hottest summer on record. I have that kind of power over the weather, ya know. Did you know I can make it rain simply by hanging a few loads of clothes out on the line? I can also clear up cloudy skies by deciding to put the clothes in the dryer. It's good to be me.
We got lots of "awwww, how cute those little girls are!!!" with these matching swim suits. Due to the hand-me-down factor, I don't usually buy new clothes for anyone other than the oldest child, but swim suits don't seem to last for much more than one season.
My kids are little fish. All afternoon I heard, "Hey Mom, MOM! Look! Watch me!" as they demonstrated their latest water acrobatics. They love to swim. Love it. I love sunning myself on the pool deck and watching them swim. Matt doesn't like the hot sun too much, but he does like it when the rest of us are happy, so it worked out well for us all.
We came home and put a bunch of sunburned, red-eyed, exhausted children to bed. We'll only have a few more short weeks of summer left to enjoy the pool, and even at that, we'll probably only get a handful of hot days. Today is on track to be a regular scorcher, maybe our first 90 degree day of the year.

There was a lot of contention last week about which swim goggles belong to who. Joe is upstairs doing his math wearing his goggles, as much in anticipation of going to the pool later as to protect his goggles from the other kids. One pair broke, and Renee took scissors to another pair. Paul ended up not liking the new goggles he picked out, and was trying to negotiate a pretty one-sided deal with one of the other kids for a pair he liked better. Later, we'll enter into negotiations as to towel assignments and diving-toy distribution. I've already rested my voice to be ready for a whole morning of "If you kids don't shape up and stop giving me lip and start doing your work I'm not taking any of you ANYWHERE later!!!!" Good times, really!