Jun 8, 2011

Teeny Tiny Pool

TeenyTinyBathingBeauty

I love things that are an exaggerated scale. Either really big, like the larger-than-life summer ceiling danglers in the Target stores right now (my kids think the giant corn cob with melting butter that looks like it's going to plop on your head is the bees knees, not to mention the giant orange popsicle with one drop that looks like you could just stick out your tongue and catch it)... or really, really tiny. Like this cute bathing beauty that was living in a mini-terrarium Donny gave to me on his last visit.

SchoolPoolPopUp

BathingCapGirlsPopUp

She just happens to perfectly match this pop-up card I got in Japan last year by Megumi Ishizuku. Um... like as in Japan in Epcot. You know, the one in between Morocco and America. But Japan is the best store, followed by the one in the Netherlands with all the trolls and Helly Hansen fur-flap hats.

PopUpPoolPorch

We used to go to the pool a lot when we were kids. Practice doing round-offs off the short diving board, steeling our nerve to leap from the tall and towering one. Doing as many somersaults as possible underwater in a row. Getting all pruney. Showing off our bathing suits for the summer (I distinctly remember having a Coca-Cola one, and also having a hot pint leopard print with the actual cat's face forming right in the center of my torso with sewn-in rhinestone pink eyes... unfortunately not pictured here.)

But there's also something to be said for the spontaneous fun of just filling up a kiddy pool on the back porch with the garden hose and just splashing away. Getting it all full of floating grass and dead bugs, like within seconds. Usually cutting yourself on the edge or on a rock or stick that got stuck underneath, and then the best part... draining the pool by sticking your foot down on one side, collapsing it as all the water (and dead bugs and grass bits) flood over your leg onto the lawn.

Add a sprinkler into the mix, and it's like your own freakin' water park. In fact, I distinctly remember the moment I decided it was time to have kids of our own. My husband was setting up the sprinkler on the front lawn around dusk on a summer evening. And I could just imagine a little kid jumping over it, getting grass all over their wet legs. And then getting cold, me wrapping them up in a towel three sizes too big for them, and feeling their wet chattery body through the terrycloth as I picked them up and carried them inside.

Just a summer day coming to a close. A garden hose. A teeny tiny moment. And it was exactly like I imagined it.

4 comments:

  1. we didn't have the grass growing up in west baltimore but turning on the hose or the corner fire hydrant was a GREAT day!

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  2. Ahh Julie. You're so urban. It sounds like Sesame Street! But with, like shootings (ha, just kidding). Is W Baltimore the good side or bad side? I only know what I see on The Wire (as you well know). Ha.

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  3. I think we should recreate this photo in Destin.

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