The Todd Squad

Hi everyone. I’m Tatana and I am an introvert. It has been 15 hours since the last time I saw people outside my home in 3-D. I am exhausted.

Two days ago, my husband Matthew says, “they have a slot in Zone 5 at Canterbury Woods from 2-3.” Are you confused? So was I! A slot for what? He reminds me that we wanted to see how swimming works in our community during the pandemic. Our county closed all of the public pools for the season; since our community pools were open we wanted to try it out.

Our Home Owners Association set a limit of 100 people per 1-hour time period. The pool is divided into 10 zones. Each zone is limited to the 10 people from one group/family. You must fill out a waiver that states that you may be exposed with communicable diseases and you fully accept the risks. You hold harmless the Association. You also have to declare you are healthy and, to ensure the safety of yourself and others, you haven’t been to or around any risky people/places in the last 14 days.

I was anxious about the waiver. What if someone lies, is asymptomatic, thinks it’s just allergies…

But we went. And it was glorious! Why? For the following reasons:

1. Reservations – you get to choose what time and what zone you wanted. This needs to be permanent in our Association.  Most people want the places where you would be able to sit against the wall. I was pleased that no one wanted the middle of the pool where our little could still touch the bottom and feel comfortable swimming. 
2. Limited to 100 people in the pool. Most families do not have 10 people in their family. So, 10 families with 4-6 people in the pool. At most it’s 60 people.  No random kid squirting water from their noodles, jumping in while you’re diving in or swimming next to you. Just your own weirdos that you brought with you.
3. Face Coverings Required in the pool house. You have to have a face covering when going through the restrooms to get to the pool. Use your towel if you forget. The goal is to slow the spread and help to keep people healthy as possible.
4. Constant cleaning and sanitizing. Every time there was a lifeguard rotation, there was another person in a mask sanitizing the lifeguard chair and area.
5. Limited to 1 hour. No need to argue with your 8-year-old who is part mermaid that we need to go home. No lingering around the deck. No lounging in the chairs. No break times every 45 mins.
6. Focusing on the family – We got to focus on the family group and not divided into friend groups. Our pool outings are usually connection with our friends that we catch up with at the pool.  Instead we were ‘forced’ to swim together. This was fun. There are no chairs, so I got in. We ALL played and swam with one another.
7. One way – you only go through the pool house to get to the pool – you leave through the gate. It’s less opportunity to be exposed to someone coming in or exposed by you coming out.
8. I enjoyed getting the exercise and playing with my kids. I didn’t realize how much I missed the pool. Our family is at the pool daily during the summer, it is so weird to not be swimming every day. A little bit of summer normalcy in an upside-down crazy time.

So, if you live in a community that has opened the pool with restrictions you should try it! You can get some exercise, go into the out, continue to bond with your family (or friends if you want to coordinate times), and still have time to relax at home where you’re comfy.

Thanks for reading!

<3 Tatana

Tatana Todd

Chief Education Officer of Todd Homeschool Academy, teacher, history lover, recovering news junkie and lover of politics and truth – which does not have to be an oxymoron. I love Jesus,  vacationing with my family, baking, reading cool children’s books, playing violin, and watching crime shows.

You can reach me on Facebook