Lazy Days

This is our fifth spring in Saltillo.  You'd think we'd have things figured out by now.  But we don't.  At least, not when it comes to the weather. 

Spring 2009:  quite warm, but pleasant.  Sometime in April or May, Mario (who loves warm weather) gave me an ultimatum:  either we were going to get air conditioning or a pool.  We both hate air conditioning (I'm still shocked he even suggested it), so 3/4 of our patio is occupied by the pool every spring and summer.  It makes me feel like I live in a resort. 

Spring 2010:  much like 2009, but spring came on like gangbusters, making it seem like winter got shoved out of the way in favor of summer. 

Spring 2011:  freakishly hot.  Above 30 degrees Celsius from March until October.  Joey was born at the end of July.  Awesome.

Spring 2012:  the heat never really reared its ugly head.  We set up the pool at the beginning of May, just because we knew that, sooner or later the heat would start.  It never really did.  We got in the pool frequently, but were also frequently cold because of it.  I began to resent that pool taking up 3/4 of my patio. 

Spring 2013:  downright cold!  When I was still wearing sweaters at the beginning of May, I had dreams that perhaps we would not feel the need to put up the pool at all this year.  I was starting to get kind of excited about that idea.  We could watercolor the patio's walls, learn how to jump rope, do yoga at night under the moon . . . oh, the possibilities! 
       
                       The kids and I went to Mexico City for two weeks in the middle of May.  One of the first nights I called Mario, he reported that he was bundled up, it being a mere 5 degrees Celsius in the house--5 degrees above freezing!  In MAY!!!  Then, then night before we came back, me mentioned that it was 35 degrees Celsius--in the house.  That's well into the nineties, for those of you stuck in Fahrenheit. 

                       I gave myself a week to figure out what was going on with the weather this spring, in order to make the big "do we put up the pool?" decision.  That Friday, when Mario came home and laughed at me as I was visibly melting at the kitchen table, the decision was made. 

                       The pool went up.

                       It's been glorious. 

                     

Friends brought over a bubble machine one day.  It was just fascinating.  We may have to get one and tease the daycare center on the other side of our patio wall. 

 

  

                      As irony would have it, it began to rain about two weeks after we put up the pool.  This cools things down considerably.  But I'm still glad we put it up. The kids now get in regularly at about 11, when it's still nice and warm, swim until 12:30, and then after lunch, when it really threatens rain, they nap (and rain makes them nap particularly well). 

 

So even if I only put up the pool in order to draw the rain clouds to this part of the world, I'm happy to have done it.  This desert needs all the rain it can get!