Ring Around the Pool

Another warning - family story ahead.

We (my brothers and I) were fortunate to be able to spend portions of our summers in Minot, ND at our maternal Grandmother's house. Maybe you have had a similar experience, but probably not - our mothers were quite inventive.

Grandma's house was really small - two bedrooms, one bath, a very small dining area. What to do when four daughers (our mothers) and their 11 children descend every summer? Where do you have all of those kids sleep, where do you feed them, how can you bathe all of them after a hot, sticky summer day and not have the water bill equal a significant portion of the national debt? Our mothers were creative.

Here is what transpired the last summer that I remember spending with the clan (keep in mind that I was 12):

The first thing that happened, following arrival, was that we had to surrender our swimming suit to an aunt or our mother and a pool pass would be sewn on (I hear that some poor family in town claimed to have 11+ children). After that we were supposed to set up our tent. You are reading correctly, a tent.

My mother borrowed pup tents from the church youth group and rolled them out in the backyard. Thus the birth of a mini boot camp. Oh yes, the boys were all excited - "whoo whee, we get to sleep in tents!" I was less than thrilled - remember, I was quite cool, or trying to be that way. I am the next to the oldest cousin. Tracy is two months older than I am so there were two of us who had hit puberty and really preferred the comfort of a real bed, showers and somewhere to glob on that make-up that we were trying to figure out how to use. How do you impress that cute guy across the street when you have to crawl into your tent at night? It gets better.

Grandma's table couldn't accommodate 11 kids - not unless each meal would last several hours so our mothers put their heads together once again (do you see a trend here?). The picnic table! Perfect. Why let those smelly, dirty children into the house when we can just throw their food onto the picnic table? No mess, no dishes if you use paper products. We were only allowed inside the house to use the bathroom (not the shower). Breakfast at a picnic table is less than desirable. I will review the "surprise lunches" another day.

Now on to bathing. Well, lovely reader, you may be way ahead of me. Remember the pool pass? We were required to go the pool every day ("take shampoo and soap along and make sure your brothers bathe in the shower!") while our mothers went and did something fun. Yes, ring around the pool. I'm surprised the life guards let us in every day.

Our mothers left us there until the pool closed for the supper hour every night. Our skin wrinkled like raisins, we would be sitting on the swings in the adjacent park waiting for someone to pull up in the station wagon and beep for us all to pile in. While waiting we mused as to whether or not our moms had forgotten us, did anyone know the way back to Grandma's if we had to walk and did anyone bring any money so we could pool our funds for a soda from the machine among ten kids.

Why dividing one can only among ten? The youngest cousin was considered too small (and she was) to join us in the backyard fun. But, she wasn't above sticking her head out of the window and telling us about the great breakfast that was being served inside the house or how much fun her bubble bath had been.

Now some may call this child abuse, but it created character in us. It also brought us closer together (literally) and makes family reunions so much fun!