Summer Fun

The kids spent a great deal of time in the pool this past summer. It was great entertainment for them and their host of friends that come through here regularly. It took the friends a while to get used to the idea of Micah splashing blissfully but nakedly beside them. We tried to keep his swim diaper on him but in the end realized it wasn't worth the fight. In his mind, the pool is a huge bathtub and one does not bath with clothing on. Not even a swim diaper.

(I saw a little boy at the end of our road this summer sporting his Crocs. Nothing else. It's nice to know I'm not the only one raising a nudist in the neighborhood. Now I can hold my head up when in public here in the redneck part of the woods.)

Micah gets tired of swimming on occasion and heads to the swing set to play and warm up. This one particular day was quite hot and I was afraid that if he went down the slide he would burn his exposed bum, so I tracked him down to diaper him. I found him at the slides, but it was too late. He'd already gone down. He'd also pooped and used the slide to wipe. There was a brown streak down the center of the spiral slide, from top to bottom.

This streak wasn't substantial enough to hose off, so I had no choice but to wipe it. I armed myself with a bucket of water and a few old rags. Who thought that a spiral slide was a good idea? Sure, the kids love it, but not when it's sporting a stripe. Nobody would use it ever again if I didn't get it clean. And how was I going to get the whole thing clean?

To help you envision the scope of my dilemma, here is the kind of slide that I'm talking about.




I wiped poo from the bottom up as far as I could reach. Wow, it was hot in there. It must surely have been 120 degrees. And in case you're not aware, poop really smells when it's heated. Then I climbed up into the playset and wiped down as far as I could reach. At times like this I wish I had monkey arms. I laid on my belly and inched farther and farther down into the superheated poop baker, scrubbing at the never-ending brown streak. I was finally in as far as I could get without sliding down head first onto the unwiped brown. I was hanging by my toes and wondering how to get back up. Thankfully, with the enclosed sides I was able to get a grip with both hands and push myself back from whence I came. Did I mention that I'm claustrophobic? I am. I am also not very fond of spiders and there was a large, black, hairy one inside that slide.

I did not tell my kids about that spider. They would never use the slide again if they knew. I also did not tell them that there may have been a very small spot in the center that I didn't get wiped. But it's probably gone by now.