For the past week, the older neighbor girl has been at her dad's, so it's just been the younger one hanging around here. Earlier this week, they got a new pool. It's not huge, but it's big enough for the kids to float in and stay cool. When the older neighbor girl is gone, the younger one becomes quite bossy, trying to control everything being done during play. I'm not sure if she's trying to recreate the dynamic between the two sisters or what, but it drives me nuts.

Anyway, Accalia and Cole have been eagerly looking forward to each day because they really like hanging out in the neighbor's pool. I think the younger one realizes this and is making sure she keeps the pool as her upper hand so she can get what she wants during play. She's turned into a little pool dictator and will tell the kids: "This is just a wading pool. It's not a fun pool! You can't splash around. You can only sit here." It goes on and on. The kicker is when Accalia and Cole aren't too eager to follow her exact instructions and she says, "I'm going to go inside and you won't be able to play in my pool ever again." I've tried gently suggesting that everyone might have a lot more fun playing if it's not just one person trying to be the boss, but that doesn't have an effect.

Well, this started happening again yesterday afternoon. We have a tiny pool that's pretty much good for some fun splashing but no floating around, and I had gotten that out because the kids were so eager to play in the neighbor's pool but the neighbor said they couldn't. I guess she changed her mind, but her mom wanted to freshen up the pool water and had the younger girl filling up the pool more. She was walking around in it holding the hose, and when Cole asked if he could do that, too, she said, "No! You're dirty. You can't be in here. I'm going to fill it up and then go inside." (For the record, Cole wasn't dirty). I was so sick of this by now, so I suggested to the kids that if they wouldn't be able to play in the pool that we should head to the pet store, which is something they'd been wanting to do for a while. As soon as the neighbor girl said this, she said, "Wait! I'll go ask my mom about the pool! No, wait! I'm going to ask her if we can go to the pet store, too!" Sigh. Isn't it sad when there's so much competition and attempt to control coming from a 5-year-old? I'm sure this is what she's used to at home, and that's even worse thinking that she'll probably bring this type of behavior to another generation if/when she becomes a parent.

We left and along the way decided that we were going to look for our own bigger pool so the kids wouldn't be at the mercy of the neighbors as far as being able to run out the door and jump in the water. Well, we discovered that there are virtually no pools left on the shelves except for the huge above ground pools. We saw the pool that the neighbors have, but I thought it might be a bit too creepy to buy the exact same pool they did less than a week later. We found another one that's not quite as big but should still give the kids more room to float around when the desire hits. We just happened to run into the neighbor girl while we were at the store. When Cole told her we were buying a pool, a desperate look came on her face as she asked why. When she saw it in our yard, though, you could see the relief as she said, "Oh, that's not so big." Cole told her that we had gotten a pool and that in this pool they could play however they wanted and not have to do just what she said. Her reply was, "Well, you can't play in my pool ever, ever again." I interjected at that point and told her we hadn't gotten a pool so the kids wouldn't want to play with her or in her pool but so they could have something when she wasn't around or able to play in her pool. "Oh," was the reply.

Well, the older girl returned last night and everyone ended up playing happily together in the neighbor's pool. Accalia told me they were waiting until tomorrow to use our pool so the water could warm up. Who knew there could be such drama surrounding little backyard pools? I think tonight I may just take the kids to the little pool at one of the parks tonight and take a break from it all.