Simply Swimming

The new Duncan pool has it all. Slides, floating river, waves, squirt guns, music, trees... It also has all the people, the noise, the stress and over-stimulation that leaves our whole family exhausted afterwards.

Today we chose the little hotel pool in Cowichan Bay. Little as in 10-front-crawl-strokes end-to-end. No games, no balls, no nothing except water, edges to jump off, and a papa ready to play with his boys.

And play we did. In the big fancy pool I'm trying to keep up with the kids as they bounce from attraction to attraction like Disneyland first-timers. Today was pure quality family time: cheering as they showed off their strokes and tricks, holding Zekiah as he learned to paddle, catching crazy divers, marvelling as Galen learned to swim underwater between my legs, fixing goggle straps.

Why are we so excited about a big pool that distracts us from being together? Why do we want to pay twice as much for half the family value and twice the overload?

This was the simple, basic pool of my childhood, and I was my frolicking playful dad. The boys have announced that it's now their favourite pool. Mine too.