Action at the Pool

Wednesday 30th March 2016

Ah, those days of luxuriously laying by the pool gossiping with my friends and planning where to go for sundowners are definitely behind me. After a very active afternoon in the pool attempting to entertain Kingsley while he splashed around safely in armband floaties – hours of it – while simultaneously doing my level best to engage our visiting Aussie friends, Anthony and Scott, with witty repartee, we had an incident.

By the late afternoon, all of us were exhausted from nonstop swimming/splashing/diving/bombing/playing with Kingsley, and the time had come to get out of the pool, shower and get dressed. This meant floaties off, swim trucks down and soon enough it was nudie Kingsley wet, happily playing near us as the lads got ready. At one point I was fully dressed, merely putting my hair up when I asked the boys, ‘What do you think of having a toddler nude at the pool or beach?’ With one eye keeping tabs on a seemingly happy-go-lucky Kingsley playing with pebbles behind the deck chairs, I folded towels and everybody’s wet gear into my supersized mum-tote. As soon as I asked this question my nude son trots up to us with runny poo all over his legs and small mustard coloured footprints the evidence that he had indeed shat himself and was coming at me for hugs dripping in it. THE IRONY.

Mortified by the crap now splattered all over the pool tiles and feeling the intense irony of asking my pals about nude non-toilet trained toddlers wearing nothing but a grin, I grabbed Kingsley and deposited him under the outdoor showers, again, this time to wash the shit away. But then I saw the pile of poo he had produced near the banana chairs. Omg! Scott came to help. We found a hose, I held it while Scott attached it to a spout, and Kingsley ran away…to shit some more, somewhere else.

Darling Scott did his best to wash the poo from all areas around the pool, then grabbed the runaway, but grainy yellow bits got smeared over his evening shorts, for unbeknownst to Scott, Kingsley shat himself again. Blushing, I rushed to save my friend from the indignity of it all. Straight under the outdoor shower my child went, the slippery little fidgeter fleeing once clean and thinking it all a game, dared me to catch him.

But a metre from him, Kingsley decided to dive bomb into the pool! No swimming trunks, no floaties! Just a smile and a heart full of confidence. Alarmed, I go straight in after him, fully clothed. Our two visiting friends getting more than they bargained for when agreeing that morning to ‘go for a wee paddle in the rooftop pool of our old apartment tower.’

Where Kingsley hangs before his dad flies away for work

Where Kingsley hangs before his dad flies away for work