Sink or Swim,

I have always thought of swimming as more a survival thing than a fun thing to do. Maybe my introduction to it at an early age explains why. See, my parents don''t swim, in fact my Mother holds a deep phobia of water. Being anywhere near it makes her anxious. I 'learnt' to swim at Primary School at about the age of 8 or 9. Everyone else seemed to be able to swim, including the deaf girl and the girl with the hole in her heart! But not me. A ghastly Maths teacher named Mrs Child was tasked with  the job of teaching me. It was basic, it was survival.....I was dragged around the pool by the drowning hook until i started to kick my legs and 'swim'. I hated that woman, and still do to a degree!

So, today I was feeling rather charitable towards the boys. Hector's ongoing saga with his eyes is playing on my mind somewhat. Weirdly it seems to manifest itself as guilt. I feel guilty that he has the problems he has, and that I can not actually physically take them away from him. Anyway, so last night in a weaker moment I asked him what he wanted to do today and swimming was the response. Well, you can imagine my face!

I googled and picked a leisure centre close by, in fact it was a bit of a smart gym kind of place. I had a quiet word with myself whilst getting ready, and did what any mother would do....drew on my eyebrows and started to pack four thousand bags of towels and what not that is needed for such an escapade.

See, I really don't like swimming, and I know that when you take your children it isn't 'swimming' as such. At this age, I am not expected to swim lengths with them. It is worse. This is water play. Splashing water in my face, at any given moment, a water spray fountain will go off unexpected renching you through. YOr worse, a bloody wave machine will go off! Yes, I know i am in a swimming pool and getting wet will happen. I don't like it though.

In fact I will go a step further in explaining why I don't enjoy the experience. It is invariably too cold, the water that is. However, no matter how cold the environment once crammed into a family cubicle with four other bodies, you literally go into heat overload. I must also dwell on the facilities some more on my rant of dislike. There is a strong chance that whilst in the changing rooms, you will step on other peoples pubes/piss/shoe dirt/did I mention pubes? All of this whilst trying to shoehorn yourself into a swimming costume. Or worse, trying to get it off. Like superglue fastness a wet swimming costume is near impossible to remove. The joy of trying to remove said item with a mild amount of dignity and fairly stealthily so to avoid both your sons staring and shouting loudly about where my willy is, and if there is any milk in my boobies!? Then there are the lockers, for which you can never find enough change for more than one locker at a time. They are too narrow, and when opened will ALWAYS spill out your pants/socks/ any other item of clothing you don't fancy sitting in whilst sopping wet from the gross floor. Shower before you go in.....that will be more standing in other peoples pubes then, no thanks. Shower when you get out....more pube standing, and also soap scum from people actually having full on showers. Lets move on.

Once in the pool, obviously the boys go berserk. Screeching so all turn to look...oh great, my attempts of an inconspicuous pool entry have been shattered. Streaky fake tan and a badly fitting swimming costume... I almost want to shout out to everyone that I am only on day 4 of the 30 day shred, and i have had three children in four years! In fact this brings me onto another thing. Swimming costumes. Who designed these things. I have a fairly long body so mostly the lower half of the entire costume will be inside my vagiba. This is not a good look, especially when children are around. It is also NOT comfortable. I did muse these thoughts to G on the way to the swimming pool. His only advice was to not go down the water slide. He found this amazing funny. Maybe not so much after he was forced to take the boys down said slide about 10 times in a row. Anyway, a huge divergence, back to my point....children. Children in swimming pool environment seem to devolve into basic mode. They are unable to do anything but splash (to which I am pretty much sure is on purpose as they know I am the one who looks like the arsehole shouting at them to stop splashing...in a bloody swimming pool!) Other faculties they lose are the ability to hear, see, or speak normally. All communication is on a screeching high pitched basis, and repetitive. Very repetitive in fact, the same thing over and over....slide, slide, slide, bubbles, bubbles bubbles, look, look, look etc.

Then there are the people there, a mixed folk. The sporty mums who wear sport swimming costumes, who 'love' it (I guarantee that no woman loves this experience that much!) The pervy dads - on reflection maybe they aren't pervy, but more akin to my way of thinking and just look shifty as they don't want to be there and there are too many women with ill fitting swimming costumes on. The guy in the jacuzzi today was DEFO a perv though, and G nearly sent me through to him like an awards swingers party but with only two people there. Luckily I saw said pervy Dad, and lowered myself back into the pool. There is the token fat dude. Not just fat, but like epically obese. The hairy dude. The one who everyone swims wide around, just in case of coming into contact with the hair. There is usually one overly hot mum who wears a phenomenally inappropriate bikini (there wasn't there today, more the shame!)

So, today we took them swimming. It was not good. It will happen again in a few more months when I feel a better mother than I feel right now. As I said, swimming is more survival to me. And so is Motherhood. Survival that is. And I do what I must for the children to be happy, and also myself to exist. So, for the record, next swimming playdate....dont expect an rsvp.