My son is happy in the 253. We started swim lessons last Saturday afternoon at Centre at Norpoint Pool in Browns Point. I was all ready with my swim trunks, having visions of my own first swim lessons in a public pool in Huntington Beach, CA  - where, according to my mother, safely cradled in the instructors arms, being ferried out to in the middle of the pool to get acquainted with the water, over and over I was SHRIEKING, "He's drowning me. He's drowning me!"

I was prepared to get in and calm the boy and let him know that at least I could touch bottom, and that as long as he held on to the side (in the normal size pool, as I remember, doing for dear life) he'd be OK (read: live). I was also a little bit worried that the class would be a little full, as the girl who had taken our information (and money) over the phone said there were only two spots left in the 10:30 a.m. class for advanced toddlers ages 4 and younger. 

But after we got the monkey into his trunks and got him pre-swim showered, we walked out to the pool to find it like no other I've ever seen. It's not a pool for swimming laps. There is no diving board. There were no lanes marked off with lines of buoys, and not one person in the entire pool (sans instructors) was over the age of seven. The pool is a squat rectangle with a cement wall divider running three quarters up the middle creating an upside down horseshoe. The right side of the horse shoe was the "shallow end" and was truly that. It was a tiled ramp the width of half the horseshoe resembling a shore, sloping gently down into the water. It leveled out to, maybe, a depth of two feet. It ran the length of the pool, and then turned the corner at the far end of the  divider and came back around to the left side of the horseshoe, which was the "deep end" -  where depth must have been no more than four feet.

This is a swimming pool for kids. Young kids. First timers. It's designed with the sole intention of making kids comfortable with being in the water. I was overjoyed. My son turned out to be one of two kids in his class. TWO. I wanted to put my trunks on and take the class with him. He was having a gas. There was even a hot tub at the far end of the pool for warm down after the lesson. I worked at a pool during my high school years, and there was never a lesson day that went by with out at least a couple of bouts of "don't want to swim" hysterics. Honestly, the only crying I saw the entire time I was there was when it was time to get out. It was amazing.

Swim lesson number two is Saturday, and then not long after that will be my son's birthday at PUMP IT UP on 38th St. behind Guitar Center - which he has been talking about since he first went there for a friend's birthday eight months ago. I have yet to experience PUMP IT UP, but I hear it's like a warehouse size moonwalk bouncy room for the whole family. We told him he could have his party there, but that it was still quite a ways off. He has been so excited about it, that, while he knew it was going to be his party, he kept worrying he wouldn't be invited.

So, we had a family day of making ourselves invitations to his birthday party and that seemed to do the trick. Now it's only days away, and I have never seen a kid so STOKED about a birthday.

My son is happy in the 253. That is the greatest compliment I can pay a city.