URI Community Swim

Dear Em,
We had a visitor this past weekend, a very special visitor. My friend Colleen is the one who first took me to the URI campus. We weathered much of high school & college together, & although she left Rhode Island after college, she is one of my dearest friends. When people come to visit RI, we try to bring them to all the places they love. For Colleen, the list is long & mostly outdoors. Unfortunately, the weather was not feeling like cooperating. We fit in a quick walk at the wall, but mostly it was supposed to be cold & rainy.

Luckily, the URI pool, or Tootel Aquatic Center, is indoors. Since Colleen spent a big part of college at the pool as a member of the diving team, I thought it would be the perfect spot for us to visit. You thought so as well. You told your whole class you were going swimming on Friday. Your teacher looked at me kind of quizzically until I explained it was an indoor pool.

You told me we needed to pack a suitcase (maybe you thought the pool was in Florida?), but after dinner I just threw a few towels, your swimmer, & my new underwater iphone camera case into a beach bag. Off we went, just us three girls.

We're lucky that URI is only a fifteen minute drive away. We bought day passes, which were only $5 each. Tootel has three pools that the community can access for recreation during certain times: the competition pool with 8 lap lanes, the diving well, & the recreational pool. We mostly stayed in the recreational pool, which I was thrilled to find was filled with warm water. You & Colleen also ventured into the diving well. Colleen practiced some of the dives she remembered from college, & you, my little daredevil, did a couple jumps as well.

You had a blast! We haven't been in the water in forever, & you had so much fun practicing swimming underwater, floating on your back, & jumping off the diving board- a one meter high diving board. You looked at the three meter board and said "let's jump off of that." I felt my heart skip a beat. Unfortunately for you, we were told after your second jump that you can't jump off the diving board with your swimmer on. We headed back into the recreational pool, & you had a blast swimming around while I took your first underwater videos & pictures.

We left chilly, but happy. I wondered to myself why we had never done this together before. I think we'll definitely incorporate this into our winter activities more often & probably look into the swim classes as well. That way you can jump off the one meter diving board without needing a swimmer.

I love you so,
Mommy