Green Is Not My Best Color

Driving home from today's swim lesson, traffic slowed to a crawl as police closed lanes and directed traffic. Just as I started to become irritated, the sight of a lady walking down the sidewalk with a crazy green hat and green-and-white striped stockings changed my mood. It was a Saint Patrick's Day parade! Crowds of green-clad pedestrians were funneling their way down Greenville Avenue towards the apparent parade site. I started daydreaming about going to the parade. The parade route past the old brick cottages of Lower Greenville, coupled with the cool damp weather, seemed perfect for an Irish celebration.

Then Claire chimed in her thoughts...

She wondered why everyone was wearing silly green hats. I explained that it was for Saint Patrick's Day. She should wear green to school on Tuesday, since everyone was going to be wearing green for Saint Patrick's day. She took some exception to this idea. "Green is not my best color. I like pink! Pink is my favorite color! I don't like green," she explained. I told her she could wear green and pink. "No! I want to wear pink. That's the only way to do it." I said that's alright, and just in case she was confused, I went on to explain that Saint Patrick was not me, her dad. He was a guy in Ireland a long time ago. Yep, old Saint Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland. What a guy. They like to celebrate him every year. Claire was not impressed, replying, "I do not want to wear green, and I do not want to go Patricking!" I loved that, the idea of "going Patricking."

Anyways, I guess Saint Patrick's Day is not really for three-year-olds (not even for rather Irish ones).

Candy Time Out

Claire has scored more than her share of candy lately. First, Valentines Day was a jackpot. She came home with a white paper bag full of candy (and accompanying valentines cards) compliments of her 16 classmates. I think I was those only parent who just sent Valentines cards and no candy. I figured I was doing other parents a service by giving them one less piece of candy to deal with. I can see now that this is an uphill fight, and maybe I was just being uptight about the whole thing. Next year, it's Fun Dip for everyone!

The following day was a birthday party for her friend and classmate Georgia. As luck would have it, the party was right after Claire's swim class, a couple of doors down. So Claire topped off her 40 minutes of swimming (well, crying) with another 45 minutes of running and jumping and rolling around. Then came the pizza and juice boxes, after which sadly, Claire could not eat all of the birthday cake put in front of her. To top it off, they sent her home with a party bag full of candy to add to her Valentines collection.

We dealt with this candy glut by giving Claire one piece of candy each morning and one piece each evening (Kit did some of her own "helping" as well). One night after Claire had already enjoyed her candy allotment for the day, she started asking for more candy. She was being very sweet about it, actually. But I said no, she already had her candy for the day. She asked again nicely, and I said no again. Then she sighed a slow "oookaaay" and carried the white candy bag over to her "timeout" corner, where we normally send her for two minutes if she misbehaves (like hockey). She left the bag on the floor there and walked back to me. I asked her why she left the bag there, and she explained that the candy was having a timeout. That nearly killed me. I almost gave her a piece of candy right there on the spot just for being so cute. (But sadly, I did not.)

Last Day of Pool

Today the Garden Hills Pool, our favorite summer weekend hangout, closed for the year. Forget about Labor Day; this is the real end of summer.

The last half hour of operation every year, the pool hosts a dog swim. People bring their dogs and let them go nuts in the pool before they drain it. Kit and I had wanted to check this out for the last couple of years, but we never managed to actually get over there. Since today was our last chance ever to see this, we finally made it, and I am glad we did. The weather was perfect, finally not too hot, and a bunch of wet dogs were running around and swimming and barking. And a bunch of wet kids were doing the same thing (minus the barking, fortunately). It made me want to jump in too! But this was just a quick visit in the evening, and we did not bring our bathing suits. Anyways, it was a fine way to close out the summer.

Pool Bust

Today I had another involuntary day off with Claire. Grace needed today and last Friday off for family reasons. Kit took Friday off and went to the zoo and did errands with Claire. Today was my turn. The day started off with a good sign. Claire's first words this morning when I got her out of her crib were "Wow! Awesome!" Sadly, the day would not live up to those bold expectations.

The first task of the day was to go to Target to return some lake supplies that we did not end up needing at the lake this weekend. As we pulled into the parking lot, just as Claire said "Target!", I realized I had the unused toddler life preserver with me, but not the unused sunglasses. I would come back another time when I had everything I needed to return.

Returning home, I began the hour-long process of getting ready to go to the pool. This process involves dressing Claire in her bathing suit and water shoes, dressing myself in my bathing suit and water shoes while keeping an eye on Claire, applying sunscreen to both of us, collecting together all the necessary water supplies such as towels, cups to play with, a kickboard, change of clothes, snacks and drinks, shutting the bedroom door so Muffin does not pee on our bed, and finally getting out the door and into the car. Damn, I forgot my cell phone. And Claire's hat. Back in the car.

We finally made it to the Garden Hills Pool, at 10:45, just 15 minutes after opening time. Claire enthusiastically said, "Pool!" as we drove up. We parked and walked up to the pool...And nobody was around. Literally nobody. The pool was closed. No hours were posted, it was just closed. I had to explain this to Claire, saying "Sorry, no people. Closed." Claire calmly repeated back "no people" as I loaded her back in the car. She cried a bit when she realized we really we not going to the pool any more, but she calmed down pretty quickly.

Determined to swim now that we were both all greased up ready to go, I went to plan B. I was not going to spend my day off not swimming! Chastain Park was not too far away, and I knew it had a public pool. So we drove up Peachtree and Roswell roads to the other pool, Claire glumly but calmly repeating, "Closed. No people." We parked, unloaded, and walked up to the pool...The closed pool. Claire offered, "Sorry, no people." The pool was closed until 4:00 in the afternoon. These beautiful pools are wasted just sitting there on such a hot, sunny day!

Plan C is to find a playground to get Claire's mind off of today's fiasco so far. After all, this was a park, and I hoped to avoid getting back in the car, which I would have considered a mortal failure at this point. The nice fellow at the nearby tennis center told us that there is a playground a little way down the road. So Claire and I walked a few blocks down Wieuca Road in 98 degree heat in our swimsuits and water shoes to the goddamn playground. We stopped along the way to sip on the Poweraid ("juice", as Claire calls it) that I had bought at the tennis center, and to enjoy the views of the golf course and baseball fields. Most of the goddamn playground was roasting in the near-noon sun, and the swings and slides were too hot to use, especially in a tiny nylon bathing suit. Claire did manage to have some fun, though, generally running and climbing around and just looking at the other, mostly older, kids. I was personally somewhat out of place among the Buckhead nanny set, but it was fun to hang out for a while. We cooled off over lunch at Moe's with a "kadeeya" and finally headed home to listen to music, dance, read, nap, and take it easy.

Even though today did not live up to the "Wow! Awesome!" expectations, it was still a fine day, and I even learned a few things along the way.

• Atlanta's pools are not open on Mondays...or something.
• Chastain Park offers some nice views of the Buckhead skyline across the golf course.
  
• Poweraid is a fine, refreshing beverage, even when quite tepid.
• Some nannies seem impatient or bored with the kids they are watching.
  
• Any day with Claire can be fun even if it is totally screwed up.
  

Jackson Lake

Today, we joined Reese and his parents, along with some other friends, at Jackson Lake for a day of watersports and fun. Today's high at the lake was a sizzling 102 degrees. Usually we would be holed up in the house on a hot afternoon like that, but today we were out in it. Fortunately, Claire handled the weather just fine. She pinked up pretty good in the heat, but we had a thick glaze of SPF 50 sunscreen on her all day, and she did not get burned.

The lake house was crawling with little kids and babies. It was pretty much a who's-who of Claire's kid friends. Reese was there with his new little brother Davis. Baby Luke, who is the four-month-old son of the other chief resident Chrissie, was also in attendance. Claire loves these babies. The last few weeks she has been whispering, "Shh... Baby Luke, sleeping. Shh... Baby Davis." Claire also met Melanie's friend's daughter Jaia (Jaya?), a lively, two-and-a-half-year-old girl with curly dark hair. Claire had actually met Jaia a few months ago when Melanie had arranged for Grace to watch her for a few days along with Reese and Claire. Apparently Grace had her hands full during those days, but Claire sure had fun with Jaia today. Well into the night, she was saying "Jaia" over and over.

We all soaked in the warm bath-like waters of the lake, the kids in full safety gear. This was Claire's first dip in a lake, and she seemed to enjoy it. She must have spent over an hour in the water, including about 15 minutes under Chrissie's watch as Kit and I took the Waverunner out for a spin. That thing was crazy fast, and Kit and I felt like we were both going to get blown off the back. Fortunately, we were able to hold on and make it back to the lake house and the kid. Besides our 15 minutes of adventure, we spent most of our day watching Claire and various babies. Claire was too wired up for her nap, so I drove her around the countryside and eventually got her to sleep a little. It had been a very long time since I had to use the old car trick to get Claire to sleep. Her little nap was enough to get her through a couple more hours of playing and exploring with all the other kids.

Everyone except Reese's grandma "Beebee" and the kids spending the night were going to ride the pontoon boat across the lake to the infamously slow Kountry Kitchen. Kit and I decided to go along and bring Claire, even though it would put her way past her usual 7:30 bedtime. Despite previous "difficult" experiences when missing bedtime by even a little bit, we decided to take a chance and join everyone for dinner.

Dinner was fun, and hot, and slow...and very late. We got to the restaurant around 8:00, and the waitress warned us before we ordered that it would take at least 45 minutes to get our food. After we ordered, Kit and I took turns sitting on the docked boat outside the restaurant in the hot night air reading Claire Curious George and the Rocket and trying to get her to sleep. Even a dark lakeside walk carrying Claire did not do the trick. Claire was charged up and ready to explore the lake or the restaurant. Eventually I brought her into the restaurant because I was about to die of hunger and thirst. We all had a fun dinner and were riding the boat across the lake around 10:30, listening to Hootie and the Blowfish's greatest hits, when Claire finally fell asleep under the stars. She stayed asleep for the transfer out of the boat, up the driveway, into the car, on the hour-long ride home, through a change of clothes, and into her crib. She probably had one of her nights of sleep ever that night, dreaming of Jaia and Reese and lights reflecting on the warm lake water.