Vacation Days
“Mom! Watch this!” Pinching her nose, my daughter C, age 7, executes a leaping jump into the pool, legs and arms splayed outward at wacky angles. The nearly empty pool is 25 feet long. Yet my kids insist on being right next to each other, bickering, fighting over toys, and generally preventing me from reading my book in peace. “MO-O-O-OM! She took my ball!” “Girls,” I intone in my best Mom-Voice-Laden-With-Meaning, “Do you need to go back inside?” “SHE does!” declares M, age 10. It’s our third day of vacation. Normally I would be in the pool with the girls. However, the pool is sunny, and I got sunburned at the beach this morning. Nothing terrible, just enough to be painful under my purse straps. Burnt shoulders shrouded by a shirt, I sit on the pool deck in one of the ubiquitous white plastic chairs, occasionally managing to read a few words from Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life . I wipe my brow. It’s 89 degrees Fahrenheit with a head index over 100, and humid ...