When You Have a Pool, and a Small Child, Door Alarms are IMPERATIVE!

When we moved to Florida, Mason did not yet know how to swim. My father-in-law, Dale (“Grampa”), helped us move from Maine. We’d planned to rent a house for a year while we figured out where exactly in Florida we wanted to end up. And, that house had a pool, as did most of the homes in that neighborhood. The same day we arrived, Grampa went out, bought alarms for the large sliding glass doors, and installed them.

The very next day, Mason took his first swimming lesson. The first lesson was okay. The second one was very, very bad and I, to this day, still harbor guilt about it. You can read about that HERE.

Mason did eventually learn how to swim but he never set off the door alarms, which were piercing…as loud as sirens. We adults, however, set off those alarms EVERY SINGLE DAY! All day long!

We never got used to that sound so we were never complacent with it. As you can imagine, nobody was happier than our neighbors when Mason finally learned how to swim! We were able to remove the door alarms and the neighborhood was quiet once again.

Our grandson, Jack, who is almost 11 months old, is learning how to swim the old fashioned way – the good way. In the meantime, we have continued the family tradition. A couple of weeks ago, I purchased door alarms for our daughter and son-in-law’s house. And, Jack’s “Grampa” (Richard) installed them. That’s when the fun for their neighbors began.

Jack isn’t old enough, nor strong enough, to open those thick, hurricane-resistant doors but that hasn’t stopped the rest of us from waking the dead each time we forget about the alarms…which is about every other time we open those doors. And, the neighbors are undoubtedly asking how we can possibly be so incredibly forgetful from a mere one minute to another, all day long, every day. Piercing alarms, squirrels scurrying, car alarms sounding, dogs barking…

Ali has assured the neighbors that someday soon Jack will learn how to swim and then the alarms can come down. Of course, if a sibling for Jack arrives during that time, that won’t be the case. The tradition must continue!

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Angela Hoy lives on a mountain in North Georgia. She is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, the President and CEO of BookLocker.com and AbuzzPress, and the author of 24 books.

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Angela is the creator of the Original 24-Hour Short Story Contest!
Learn more here: https://24hourshortstorycontest.com/

Writing FAST: How to Write Anything with Lightning Speed

A systematic approach to writing that generates better quality quickly!

Chock full of ideas, tips, techniques and inspiration, this down-to-earth book is easy to read, and even easier to apply. Let author Jeff Bollow take you through a process that brings your ideas to the page faster, more powerfully and easier than ever before.

When You Have a Pool, and a Small Child, Door Alarms are IMPERATIVE!

Writing FAST: How to Write Anything with Lightning Speed

A systematic approach to writing that generates better quality quickly!

Chock full of ideas, tips, techniques and inspiration, this down-to-earth book is easy to read, and even easier to apply. Let author Jeff Bollow take you through a process that brings your ideas to the page faster, more powerfully and easier than ever before.

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