The Pool is Up

Here, in the mountains above California’s central valley, we are seeing unusually hot temperatures. Kevin made the garage shelves with Aidan’s help and then dug out a flat space for the pool (with a bit of help from Sean and Brendan). Then Kieron was put on guard while the pool filled, which took about an hour. I brought him a chair and he read Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Adventures of Prickly Porky while he sat there.

Later on Clare and Liam and I were saying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy when we heard happy shrieks coming from below the deck. Clare ran to look — it was Aidan shrieking, as he tested out the pool with Kevin in there helping him “swim”. I brought Paddy out, but the coldness and depth of the water gave him a shock and his whole intention after that was to get back out as fast as possible. We got him to “swim” a bit so he wouldn’t feel too abject once he was out, which made me feel a bit uncomfortable but turned out to be a good choice since when he got out he became rather proud of himself.

Kieron got in too and ended up spending most of the afternoon in there. Kevin assigned Brendan the building of the ladder. He was bashing them around and getting frustrated but ended up doing a perfectly competent job, even though he grumbled about how inadequate he is at these things. Sigh…. this negativity is something I wish he would outgrow.

I BBQ’d hamburgers and corn on the cob on the deck — it was SO hot. I don’t really like water that much but I stepped into the pool for a few minutes to cool off. Then, of course, Paddy wanted to go in. I tried to talk him out of it — reverse psychology ALWAYS works with him. He really wanted to come in. But I didn’t want to hold him and get wetter than I already was. So finally I put a deck chair in the pool and that worked — he was only submerged up to knee length when he stood, which was perfect, and he could pretend he was in a boat and Kieron was the evil eel trying to pull him down.

After we got out Kevin and the older boys put a tarp over the pool but even our largest one wasn’t big enough. They struggled for a little while. Shortly after that, the wind started moving the trees and we heard thunder. The temperature dropped 23 degrees within a few minutes. There was a wild golden light in the trees. The power went out, then back on, then out again. Soon we were in the midst of a good thunderstorm. We opened as many doors and windows as we could to let in the good cold wind, and the teenagers stayed outside on the deck to let the rain hit them.

Eventually the power went back on and we hastened to the computer to print out our stories for the story club meeting! Aidan and Paddy were both falling asleep at the table as we had the meeting. Clare put them in her sweaters since they were both shivering. So cute!

Liam and I played classical guitar duets this afternoon, too, and he told another Latin story for me to write down and try to translate. While we were going over what I’d written he discovered some syntactical errors he had made. So this procedure works for both of us — he is composing in Latin and reviewing so he will be up to speed this fall when he starts college again, and I am learning some newish constructions and vocabulary.

Kieron is so excited about his story. He keeps telling me plot points and how he envisions the characters. Clare suggested that he start a blog to publish the chapters. We’ll see what happens.

Hmm, it looks like the little icon for putting in links is not here, anymore. Wonder if the loss is temporary or if I’ll have to figure out another way to do the URLs.

There are still books all over the house as I continue sorting and labelling and discarding.