General Knowledge

I have no idea how I got to be the mother of a six-year-old boy living in Nepean without knowing that there was a ginormous outdoor pool nestled away just 0.5 kilometres off the beaten track that is Meadowlands drive. It was only when a daytrip to General Burns Park & Pool came up on the summer field trip schedule at Carleton Heights for the third summer in a row did I ask any questions. So what kind of "pool" are we talking about? A wading pool? "Oh, no—it's huge" says Amanda. "They have three diving boards."

Seriously?

That day, Sam (and everyone in the JK-SK group except Carter—props to Carts!) failed the swim test that would allow them access to the diving boards. Sam was despondant later, explaining that he only paused "druring" his test because people were calling him in another direction and he got confused. Though he had a splashy fun time, the call of the elusive diving board (so close and yet so far!) prompted me to pile the boys in the car two days later and head out to this so-called "huge pool."

It was, in a word, huge. Maximum number of bathers? 394. That's almost four hundred. This ain't no wading pool (oh, but they have a wading pool, too, for infants and toddlers, separately fenced and with a Little Tykes slide set up in the middle of it). I understand why Sam might not have mentioned this pool as a four year old, given his take on scary bodies of water you can see 10 feet down into. But after spending the week in the pool during our Key West visit, he was a transformed boy at 5 when it came to swimming. I can only surmise that he didn't ask if we could go to General Burns because it didn't occur to him that mere families could show up at pools that seemed to be populated entirely by field trip kids. Like it was in another dimension that moms couldn't access.

Well, now we know. We spent 2 hours in the water together—quite a feat for this mom, but the rules demanded it ... swimmers under the age of 8 must stay within arm's reach of a grown-up regardless of swimming ability. The boys didn't seem to mind the supervision at all (see: huge pool) and they spent more than half the time lining up for their turn on the diving boards anyways. I treaded water alongside the ladder to cheer them on and to keep an eye on the shenanigans of the bigger kids. Me and 10 lifeguards.

I was proud of the two of them for their confidence in the company of kids twice their age. Sam was shorter by at least a foot than the average diving board user, but he marched up there with the rest of them and did his cute little 180 degree turns while they did spectacular backflips and sommersaults, egging each other on to ever crazier feats. Brave Carter took his first three jumps off the X-metre board (I don't know from measurements. It was high. See top photo.), but he was drawn to the hijinx of the older boys and came back to join Sam in his line. I should have seen the spectacular bellyflop coming. I'm not sure if he was planning to flip and pulled out, or what, but he did the swan dive opening without the swan dive finish. We took a little breather after that. So he could breathe.

It was a record-breaking hot and humid day, so Red Chest didn't want to sit out for long. After another 20-minute round, though, we packed it in and headed for Baskin Robbins. A waffle cone to cap the first of what are sure to become many, many trips to General Burns pool. Here's a portrait of the cousins from Trip One.