When it comes to spending summer with the kids, you have a few options for fun. In fact, the fun seems bloody limitless. Limitless until your little cherubs want to visit your local public pool that is. For me, this is a time that I choose to try to persuade them to do something else, anything else.

You see, our public pool is gorgeous. It is actually extremely well maintained for a public pool. The way the water glistens in the sunlight is a sight to be seen.

Yet, while the public pool is well maintained so are most of the mothers there. I am not judging them, I mean good for them in their itsy bitsy teeny tiny polka dot bikinis and all. Their skin glistens in the sun as they tie their beautiful bountiful locks up into a French braid, and then in I walk with my gaggle of kids.

Most of the time when I take the kids to the public pool, they each want to bring a friend. This leaves me with 4 noisy and excited children ready to take a dip. So as these beautiful people lounge around the side of the pool reading people magazine and quietly soaking up some sun, we might as well walk in with a trumpet blowing telling people to PAY ATTENTION TO US.

Every time I usher the kids into the locker room and then out to the deck, I feel ridiculous. My hair is up in a ratty mom bun and I am most likely wearing a large tankini, black in shade, to attempt to just kind of be unnoticeable. It doesn’t work. We look like a store brand version of the Brady bunch every single time, except in this Brady bunch, mom likes her cheeseburgers maybe a little too much and you can see them on my thighs. Whoops.

I pretend not to care that I stick out like a sore thumb and always make my way to a chair at the back corner of the pool deck. Throwing down the water wings, the life jackets, the googles the kids JUST HAD TO HAVE BUT NEVER USE BUT INSIST I HAVE TO BRING WITH US ANYWAY, and an overabundance of pool toys and floaties.

This is where the fun begins as each of the kids wants to use the same damn pair of goggles all of sudden, as if they are freaking Gollum from Lord of the Rings, this pair of goggles are the goggles to rule them all. They get loud and elevated and I have to take a deep breath to keep myself from losing my mind. We find a solution that everyone is happy about, except now people are staring at me.

UGH.

I play with the kids in the pool for a while and while it is fun, I have to spend the entire time wiping my eyes because I forgot to remove my mascara last night and now I look like a freaking trash bandit. Once the pool fun is over, we decide we want to go head for some ice cream, so we pack off and set on our way to have a treat.

I swear I heard clapping from those moms as we left, but I will never know.

The next time the kids want to go to the public pool, I will probably send them with their dad.

 

Jen is a 32 year old work at home mother of two wonderful little cherubs age 7 and 10. She writes for ninjamommers.com with a 7 year old on her head, a dog barking at nothing and a 10 year old making weird noises in her ear. Send Wine.