Summer can't possibly be coming to an end!?!? It only just begun.

Sadly it is time to take off my flip flops and put on some sneakers. (have I ever told you how much I hate socks?)

This is our final Poolside Perspective of the season. Next week, Lessons from the lunchlady will return when I update all of you on my child nutrition summer workshop.

Here's what I learned at the pool.

You are never too old to jump off the high dive. I think as we age we begin to feel like there are things we just shouldn't do anymore. When my friend B was in line for the high dive the small boy behind her was simply flabbergasted. "Is you gonna jump off the high dive?" he asked. "Ain't you too old?". B said he was lucky he was cute.

Drowning your kid (or someone else's) is frowned upon. I swear all I wanted to do was jump on the raft and torture my friend B's son. Who knew he'd be so slippery and that we would both go tumbled off into the shallow; me crushing my knee into his head. I really wasn't trying to drown him.

Pool bathrooms disgust me. Can someone please hose those nasty,germ encrusted cesspools down? For the love of all things holy, can you please make your kid put shoes on. I vomit a little every time I see them run in barefoot.

Letting the child in charge of the bee sting spray = dumb idea. Middle G tramped on a bee this week and went to see the lifeguard who promptly gave her ice and let her friend spray some random bug spray on her foot. Seriously?

Are these inside out? Wearing you bathing suit bottoms inside out to the pool in front of two 11 year olds will cause much laughter and a lot of OMGs.

In conclusion, we had a lot of fun at the pool this year, we jumped off the dives, we floated in our rafts, we ate cheese fries, we made new friends.

Already looking forward to sitting poolside next year.

This week I was only poolside sporadically.  The week started out with crappy cool weather, becoming unbearable by Wednesday and Thursday, and returning to random crappy thunderstorms by today.

We took a day away from the public pool and spent it at my friends backyard oasis, which was fan.tas.tic.

Here's what I learned.

Timeout?  I've put my kids in time out at the pool.  I've seen other's put their kids in time out.  This week, while walking to the bathroom I saw a mom in time out.  I can only guess she put herself in time out.  She had her chair facing the fence and was reading a book.  Um...the view isn't even good, but I guess she was just fed up with looking the other way. 

If everyone knows the code, well it's no longer a code.  My daughter has reached the wonderful age of waredrobe malfunctions.  Since having your breast fall out of your suit at the pool, is uber embarrassing we decided to simply say flamingo.  However, seems everyone a lot of people now know the code.  My daughter said, "If everyone one knows the code, you might as well scream breast."  She has a point.

Behave like there IS a lifeguard on duty.  Our kids were like monkeys let loose at the zoo when we went to our friend's pool instead of the public pool.  They were taking innertubes down the slide, stopping mid slide, and just acting ridiculous on the dive.  Needless to say, we can't wait to go back.  Here's hoping we're still welcome (*wink*)

Just because they make it.  I'm pretty sure we covered this last year, but it needs to be reiterated.  Just because the swimsuit comes in your size, doesn't mean you should wear it. 

Tripping sucks.  Tripping and releasing your flamingo, sucks even more.  What is the appropriate response when a woman trips up the steps getting out of the pool right in front of you and her breast tumbles out of her top.  Yelling flamingo doesn't help.  Turns out... not everyone knows the code.

What did you learn this week?