Swimming surprise

This afternoon our neighbour rang the doorbell to see if he could borrow our bicycle pump, so I went and got the bicycle pump for him and only closed the storm door, knowing he'd be back to return it shortly. I was rather surprised when, a few minutes later, I heard the storm door open and someone clomped into the house.

I was helping Zoë in the bathroom so we hurried back out and were surprised to see Rachel and Miriam home! It's an early release day. I've got to stop forgetting about those! 

Our potential new school has early release days every Monday. I should be able to remember that—at least better than I remember these once-every-couple-of-months early release days. 

I was wondering what to do with the kids on a lovely afternoon when they all disappeared. I found them "helping" our neighbour (a different neighbour) wash her car. Really, Benjamin was spraying the honeysuckle bush* but was actually spraying his sisters. Really the bush is not supposed to be a honeysuckle bush either, but did you know that another name for honeysuckle is "woodbine"? I didn't either until I looked it up. There's a nursery rhyme in a book I picked up at a library discard sale when Rachel was a baby that seemed rather new to me when I first read it, but now I have it memorized and I often find myself imploring my babies (and children) to, well, sleep, but also to "be always like the lamb so mild / a calm and sweet and gentle child."

Sleep, baby, sleep

The cottage vale is deep

The little lamb is on the green

With wooly fleece so soft and clean

Sleep, baby, sleep

Sleep, baby, sleep

Down where the woodbine creep

Be always like the lamb so mild

A calm and sweet and gentle child

Sleep, baby sleep. 

I'll have to learn the tune so I can sing it to them (rather than chant it at them). There are also more verses out there. Who know?

Sleep, baby, sleep

Your father tends the sheep

Your mother shakes the dreamland tree

And from it fall sweet dreams for thee

Sleep, baby, sleep

Anyway, because of this poem/lullaby/nursery rhyme, we looked up woodbine once and it can be any number of things that crawl up other plants (and bind them (or choke them) to death), such as Virginia creeper or honeysuckle. So, the bush is really not a honeysuckle because underneath it all I think it's a holly bush? But you can't even tell at this point.

So, Benjamin was spraying the woodbine his sisters with the hose and eventually the neighbour decided she may as well just break out the sprinkler and the kids got into swimming suits and then our neighbour offered us a kiddie pool she's been keeping under her deck (she got it for her dogs but they were completely uninterested). So we cleaned it out, hopped in, and...that's basically how we spent the afternoon

Zoë wasn't really a fan of the sprinkler (but what is she a fan of, really?):

Here are the kids enjoying the pool:

Rachel sprayed Miriam with cold water and you can tell that she's finding a little bit of joy in tormenting her little sister:

When Miriam turned the tables, however, Rachel flipped out on her:

Here are the little ones splish-splashing:

Zoë didn't like it much when her big sister were in there splashing, so she came over to hang out with me:

She told me all sorts of important stuff that I couldn't quite understand:

When she was in the pool by herself she declared that she was Moana:

Here she is showing me Moana's boat:

And here are Benjamin and Zoë enjoying the pool together:

 

While the little ones were splashing, Rachel and Miriam decided to do some yoga (because why not?):

 

It ended up being a wonderful afternoon...even if I hadn't been planning on anything remotely special at all (because as far as I knew, the girls still had hours of school left to go).