Day 1,571 - The One With the Failed Pool Trip

I strive to be a pretty good dad. In fact, I take great pride in the fact that I'm not downright horrible at my job. Occasionally, I even get a modicum of credit from my children regarding my dad skills. On the flip side though, there are times that I absolutely lay an egg.

With Monday marking the final day of summer vacation, I always find myself dealing with a large array of emotions. For one thing, there's always a slight tinge of relief that I'm done trying to entertain/referee two very enthusiastic and opinionated children. On the flip side though, I'm generally pretty bummed about the summer ending. For one thing, I know that I only have a certain number of summers to enjoy with my kids while I'm young and I want to make them count. Also, I'm aware that I'm reaching the end of my career as a stay-at-home day which means it's only a matter of time before I need to plan out the rest of my life. Slightly scary proposition if I do say so myself.

Regardless of all of that, I always want to do my best to make each day count. As a result, when Ellie let me know that she wanted to go swimming for her final day of summer, I decided to make that a reality. It honestly seemed like an easy enough thing to accomplish on the surface as we have a friend who lives in the apartment complex across the street who was more than happy to give us her pool code. Therefore, as soon it seemed feasible to go swimming (9:15 am), we loaded up in the car and headed across the street.

As we pulled into the complex, I was somewhat surprised to see that the pool was empty on such a hot day. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the pool was locked and I had to break the news to two very sad children that the pool wasn't open yet. After taking a few minutes to navigate the ocean of emotions coming from my back seat, I was able to placate the kids by offering to take them to Kearney to a splash pad. So with that, we headed towards Kearney.

On the way there, I received a text from Bethany, who had checked in with her friend, confirming that the pool opened at 10. I happily relayed that news to the kids and turned the car around to head back to the pool. When we arrived, I made the decision to leave the kids in the car so that I could check the pool myself. Unfortunately, not only was it still locked but there was a worker in the pool treating the water. He informed me that it wouldn't be ready for swimming until after lunch. Fairly arbitrary window but I figured I could work with it. With that, the kids and I headed to Sam's Club to get a few items we needed to pick. And yes, we were still wearing our swimsuits. We're those people now.

Tell me how you really feel about our trip to Sam's Club, Ellie.

Around 1:00, I decided the time had come to check the pool again, so we ventured across the street only to find that it was still locked. At this point, you can pretty much guess that Ellie and Ethan were inconsolable. All I could do was start calling local pools to verify that they were open. The only problem is that every pool I called had just closed for the season over the weekend. Finally, there was no other recourse; it was time to go to Kearney.

Once we arrived at Kearney, it was not farfetched to say that I was feeling stressed. In fact, I was downright done with life. However, as I watched Ellie and Ethan splash in the water and listened to them happily shriek in excitement, I realized that it wasn't all bad. I could sit there and be bummed and frustrated about the course of the day or I could get in the water with them and enjoy my afternoon. For the record, I chose the latter and it turned into a pretty good day. Ellie and Ethan even thanked me profusely for taking them to the splash pad.

Who would have thought that a disappointing trip to the pool could have turned into a great afternoon at the splash pad? Not I but that just goes to show what I know.

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