We threw a birthday party for Dee Dee on the Saturday after her birthday.  The previous Saturday, Dee Dee went to a birthday party for one of her classmates.  It was Dee Dee’s first birthday party invitation of the year and she was happy to go to the party.  The party was held in the birthday girl’s yard.  Dee Dee and this girl didn’t get along for a good portion of the year.  But I didn’t worry too much about what changed in order for Dee Dee to be invited to her party, especially since Dee Dee didn’t seem concerned about it.  She brought the girl a present from the box of inexpensive but nice toys and art supplies that were collected for such an occasion and hidden in my wife’s closet.   

On the same day that we had scheduled Dee Dee’s party, a boy in Audio’s class also had a birthday party.  Audio said that she would like to go to that party, but was hardly heartbroken when we told her that she wouldn’t be able to go to both Dee Dee’s party and the boy’s party.  This had nothing to do with the fact that this was the boy who brought lice to school, that he has never been someone that Audio liked, that the party was a half-hour drive away, or even that the party was at a full-sized public pool and Audio has only had a handful of swimming lessons.  It just wouldn’t work out to try to pull off Dee Dee’s party and then try to get to this event. 

Dee Dee’s party was at our local park.  We had Domino’s pizza, cupcakes, little bottles of water, and little bags of chips.  We decorated the trees with crepe paper and balloons, covered the picnic tables, and put up a sign that read, “Happy Birthday.”  And, of course, there were gift bags for each kid who was invited, and a few who just happened to be at the park on that day.  Other than that, the kids entertained themselves on the playground.  It took a fair amount of effort to pull off this simple party.  But, at the end of the day, after having not been able to have a birthday party for half of her life because of COVID, Dee Dee said that the day was everything she’d hoped for. 

It seems that May is the birthday month.  While planning Dee Dee’s party, she received an invitation (siblings included) to a party, the weekend after hers, for a classmate, at another park in our neighborhood.  And Audio received an invitation (siblings not included) to yet another party the weekend after that.  The party that Audio is invited to is during the last weekend of the school year. 

Last weekend, we took the girls to the party at the other park in our neighborhood, for Dee Dee’s classmate.  That park has a wading pool.  There is signage all around the pool informing bathers that the pool is 1’ 4” deep.  Sometimes, odd figures like that are due to a conversion from metric or exactly half or double of some figure.  I still haven’t figured out why the pool was 1’ 4” deep.  But, it made it just the right depth for Dee Dee to be able to use her hands on the bottom of the pool to move herself around like she was swimming, but not. 

My wife and I sat poolside, watching the girls, getting splashed by excited children, and occasionally trying to communicate with Dee Dee and Audio.  There were many people in the pool.  According to the evite guest list, there were over 100 children there for the birthday party.  Many of them were crowded into the pool.  There were also others in the pool who, judging by their behavior, were not party guests and wanted little to do with all the excited, young children.  The non-guests all had floatation devices; some for babies, and some for fully grown adults.  It was a hot day, and the floatie crowd assumed that they’d get the pool to themselves.  One family even brought a small P.A. system to play their favorite music.  Anyway, the innertubes and pool noodles were constantly bumping into the kids from the party, which caused them to jump and shriek and splash all the more.  And then there was Dee Dee, who was slithering her way between all the bodies like a salamander searching for friends. 

Audio stuck pretty close to where we were sitting, but Dee Dee moved about the pool with her handy-swim technique.  She seemed to be really enjoying herself until she swallowed a mouthful of pool water.  She complained about that a bit, and then got back to what she was doing.  After she swallowed or inhaled water for a fourth time, I suggested that she stop what she was doing and just sit in the pool, or walk around, or do something that would raise the level of her face above the water.  Instead of listening to me, she handy-swam to the other end of the pool where she didn’t have to listen to me.   

I kept an eye on Dee Dee, but I couldn’t really see what she was doing.  She looked like she was intently working something with her hands under the water, but she didn’t seem to be in any sort of distress.  So, I sat where I was and watched.  After a minute or so, Dee Dee moved quickly away from where she had been and made her way back to where Audio was playing, near her mom and me.  Dee Dee pulled something out of her bathing suit and tried to give it to Audio, who rejected the thing and backed away.  It’s pretty common for Dee Dee to pick things up that she shouldn’t.  So, I wondered if she’d found another stray band aid, a dead animal, or something worse. 

I called to Dee Dee to get out of the pool and come to where we were sitting.  She did her best to hide the object from us, but I could see that it was a cap or a lid to something.  When she finally handed it over, it was round, heavy, and made of metal.  There were threads around the outside it and a bit of a handle on top.  As I started to ask her what it was, I heard a kid yell, “It went down the drain!”   

As voices started to rise at the other end of the pool, I asked Dee Dee what I was holding.  Nervously, and irritatingly slowly, Dee Dee began to tell me about how she had been pulling herself along with her hands when she found this knob and started to turn it.  She turned it enough that it came out of the pool floor.  When I looked back to the other end of the pool, where the kid had been shouting, I saw that all the kids were climbing out of the water and a whirlpool had started.  I set the cover on the ground next to the bench where we were sitting, and got Audio out of the pool.  My wife and I each grabbed a towel and draped them over the girls’ heads.  We half dried, half hid our kids’ faces as we marched them out of the pool area, away from the park, and into our car. 

Monday afternoon, after school, I brought the girls to the playground at the park near our house, where Dee Dee’s party had been. That park has a wading pool, but the city doesn’t fill it with water until the school year has ended. There were a few families who were looking at the empty pool from outside the locked gate. They all had swimming suits and bags stuffed with towels and pool toys. I wasn’t very close to them. But as I pushed Audio on a swing, I heard the group discussing how odd it was that their local pool had been open for over a week, but was now drained and closed for some reason.