The big pool

Out in the middle of nowhere and I mean NOWHERE, there is a pool.   Well actually not really a pool, but more like an ACRE of water in a big concrete square  It's jaw dropping when you first see it.  Massive.  Surrounded by cornfields.  Holds 3500 people according to the "Capacity" sign. That number...by the way...is more people than live in the small town where this pool is located. No one can really explain to me why it's there.  "Some guy built it".   It's the last of it's kind, I assure you.  I paid THREE dollars for my daughter and I to get in.  Popsicles are a quarter.  Candy is 75 cents.  Where can you find values like that?  Better yet, how do they keep this place open?  I'll bet there were maybe 50 people there.  and 12 were life guards.

I took the day off (read as got told that I had to take the day off because the doctors were off) and took Emma to the pool with my best friend and her kids.  Emma was so excited.  She fairly danced with excitement all morning until we finally started on the hour drive to the pool town.  As we drove deeper and deeper into the corn country she became more and more discouraged when we didn't arrive at the much touted pool.  At one point she said "I don't think there IS a big pool!".  Like I'd lie about something like that.

We had a great time at the pool, weather was perfect.  But poor Emma.  We were there for six hours and the following happened:

1.  She fell and skinned both knees

2. Went down the slide and lost a tooth when she hit the water

3. Jumped off the play gym and twisted her ankle

4. Got a chafed bottom from going down the slide so many times

5. Scraped the skin off the pads of her toes from the concrete bottom of the pool and was     leaving little bloody toe prints.

I SWEAR I was watching her every second!!  She played so hard and had so much fun, I had to DRAG her out of the water every time the life guards blew the whistle for a break.  The minute the whistle blew again she was back in the water.  She was completely pruney.  

At the end of the day (SIX HOURS LATER) I was getting her dry clothes on and she looked at me with glazed eyes and said "I had so much fun...thank you  for bringing me mommy". 

I almost cried.  I nearly WRECKED her by letting her play so long and so hard and she loved every minute of it.  She fell asleep after eating 6 chocolate chip cookies in the backseat, face smeared with chocolate, hair still damp from the big pool, mouth agape with a new gap-toothed grin, tan from the sun, completely and utterly spent.  

I love the big pool.