One of Horse's friends had a pool party today in honor of his ninth birthday. Horse was one of three girls invited along with approximately three zillion boys. One of the girls was on vacation and could not make it, but the other girl's father said she would be there. (I had been leery of having my daughter be the only girl in a sea of boys, so I had asked.) Apparently, he was misinformed. Horse was the only nine-year-old girl there, although there were two much younger girls who came with their brothers.
One of the first things my daughter managed to do was venture out into deeper water than she could comfortably handle. She was sort of okay, and I was watching her like a hawk, until one of the boys squirted her in the face with a water pistol. She went under, and although she bobbed back up and was slowly bouncing her way towards the shallow end once more, Birthday Boy's father jumped in to the pool to get her there faster. He also sacrificed his cell phone to do this. I offered to pay to replace his phone, since he was assisting my daughter at the time of its submersion, but he told me he was using this as his excuse to upgrade to a smart phone. Apparently, his wife even told him to take his phone out of his pocket before jumping in the water and he rejected that idea. He wanted a new cell phone that badly, I guess. Alrighty then.
A few minutes after my daughter was rescued, another kidlet went under, except he did not bop back up the same way Horse did. He flailed wildly while keeping his head under water. The two adults nearest him grabbed him and managed to pull him out of the water. A few minutes later, another boy ran up to me and said, "Mrs. Dragon, this was a pool party, but now it's a puke party!" The poor boy who had gone under had swallowed quite a bit of the chlorinated water and emptied his stomach on Birthday Boy's back steps. He went home feeling quite miserable not too long afterwards.
By this point in time, I decided to never, ever own a pool, let alone invite kidlets over for a pool party. I also decided that swimming lessons are in my kidlets' near future, whether they want to learn how to swim or not.
Not too long after the poor, miserable boy left for home, all of the other kidlets had settled into a rhythm. The boys all splashed, shot at each other with water pistols or pool squirt toys, beat each other with giant foam noodles, jumped both into the pool and onto each other, and generally raised Cain. My daughter had absolutely no idea how to deal with all the lively shenanigans. When one of the boys started paying almost exclusive attention to her, which mostly involved splashing at her and trying to hold onto the inflatable tube she was in, she had no idea how to handle it. For a while, she splashed back at him, and both of them had good-natured grins on their faces. Then, he crossed the line. He teased her by saying that one of the other boys was her boyfriend, and she dissolved into tears. If the boy/girl drama is this big of a deal the summer before these kidlets enter fourth grade, then I am dreading middle school when the hormones kick in and convert otherwise normal individuals into weeping, paranoid crankypants.
Horse was somewhat consoled when I told her that boys show attention to people they like in a different manner than girls do. Heck, I told her Pig still acts like a little goofball around me and I married him anyway. She giggled and said "Mom" using three syllables, which generally implies she is feeling better. At least she wasn't in tears anymore.
Horse seemed to deal reasonably well with the rest of the pool party. She gleefully snarfed down two huge slices of pizza and two pieces of ice cream cake when it was time to eat. She pleaded with me to let her return to the pool after eating, and I acquiesced, although I was relieved when Birthday Boy's parents told everyone to get out of the pool so Birthday Boy could open his presents. Horse was thrilled that Birthday Boy loved the present she had picked out for him (Pokemon cards) and became even more elated when she found out that the goody bags had Pokemon cards in them as well. We left shortly thereafter.
All in all, Horse seemed to enjoy herself. She did turn into a sobbing mess upon arriving at home, claiming that she had been overwhelmed and upset by all of the exuberant behavior in the pool. The fact that she kept asking to go back into the pool did not register in her mind at all, nor did she remember jubilantly splashing back at anyone who got her first. I guess this is one of the "fun" things about selective memory. I think I will wait until she's had a full night's sleep before reminding her that she did actually seem quite chipper and happy to be there throughout most of the entire pool party. Otherwise, I'm afraid that confused pre-teen might come back out to snarl at me.Wish me luck.
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