Andy's mother, the brute

This summer we're really spending some time at the pool. Our neighborhood pool has one big pool with lanes and two small diving boards as well as a baby pool. The baby pool is tucked off the main pool with a separate fence between them. The only problem is 45 minutes after the hour, the lifeguards kick the kids out of the big pool to give them a break and make sure no one is drowning. Unfortunately, that's when the big kids decide to descend upon the small pool.

At first, I let it happen. I watched helplessly as these elementary school terrors splashed water in Andy's face, making him cry, and took his toys. I looked around for parents of these kids to intervene or a lifeguard to do his or her job. I was embarrassed to be the bad guy or make a scene. But now that I've become a regular, I've discovered that no one is going to intervene. Except me. Tonight we were at the pool for a marathon 3 hours (turns out there was even a potluck dinner on Friday night that we crashed, promising to bring double next week). At two breaks, I got up and kicked the older kids out of the pool myself. I got a scared looked from the dad of a one year old who clearly isn't up on the gig, but a mom of two toddlers thanked me afterwards.

I'm not normally the aggressive type like this. I'm fine letting Andy work out some of his own battles over who is playing with a toy, but when it comes to older kids picking on little ones, that's just not cool.