Solo Pool Time

August 6, 2014

It’s the middle of summer and the boys are with their father for 9 days. So here I am with almost half of the week with nothing to do. So off to the local pool I go…alone!

Here is what I consider the pros and cons of a mom going to the pool alone.

Pros:

1) Alone time!!!! Sweet blissful alone time! I can sit far away from the baby pool and watch the moms chasing their crappy little rug-rats around the pool and smile smugly to myself, and I do.

2) I can go into the lap pool during “adult only” swim time. Random children aren’t jumping on me or bumping into me. Just me, floating.

3) I don’t have to worry about small talk with other mom’s as our kids play near each other. I’m really good at the small talk but it’s fucking exhausting.

4) I can get a tan! An ‘on purpose, laying in the sun’ tan. Not the half body tan you get from sitting in the baby pool playing “let’s dump water on Mom!”

5) It’s cheap! I don’t have to lug a bag of snacks along from home only to spend an extra $20 at the snack-bar on food deemed more delicious than my snacks.

6) I saunter in with my beach chair and one bag, not packed so full the seams are about to burst. I don’t need a bag full of snacks, toys, blanket and then more chairs. I practically have a skip in my step (not really, I can’t skip)

7) I can bring a book. And music! I can sit for as long as I want with my headphones in and a book in my lap. It’s the most reading I’ve done in years.

8) I can sneak in booze! If I wanted to, I mean I would never, ever do that. Obviously.

Cons:

1) Alone time. I know I know, I can’t complain about something I also consider a pro. But after 5 hours I get a little bored with my own thoughts and wouldn’t mind my kid asking me for the 1 millionth time why he can’t swim naked. After a few hours I just turn into that weird lady that sits at the pool staring at everyone a little too long. Thank God for sunglasses.

2) I have to run the old lady gauntlet to get into the lap pool at adult swim. For some reason they all just stand in the shallow end, directly in front of the stairs. They talk loudly and they do not hear you when you say “excuse me!”. I don’t want to push an old lady out of the way, but…I’ll push a bitch. And once I’m in I have to listen to the conversations of said old ladies. I’ve learned a lot about which son remembers his mom's birthday, which cat has diabetes and who’s going to the doctor next and for what.

3) Without my kids at the pool I don’t get to catch Little Lion at the bottom of the slide. He has just mastered this thanks to a PuddleJumper (best kid floatie ever!!) and a severe need to be able to do anything his big brother does. I love treading water at the bottom of the slide ready to catch Little as he flies out of the slide with the biggest smile on his face I’ve ever seen. Then we wait and cheer on Danger. I could do it all day.

4) Although I hate other people’s shitty kids jumping around me, I love it when my kids do. Counting down for cannonballs and letting them dunk me is what pools are all about.

5) Without my kids there’s no excuse to eat ice cream. If I eat ice cream alone I’m the sad fat chick who’s devouring a King Cone solo. But with my boys there I’m just a mom enjoying an ice cream with her kids.

6) When I take the sleeve off my book (which I swear I only did because it’s bright yellow and bees kept trying to check it out) I look like a woman trying to read 50 Shades of Grey in public. If my kids are with me I obviously have no time for a book or such judgement. (Plus, give me some credit, I read 50 Shades on kindle in public, I’m not an idiot).