All “Pooled Out” Kids? Tough! Momma Gotta Swim!

Me...NOT!!!  What a lie!

So it's only been three weeks since school let out and my kids are already complaining that they're all “pooled out” and are sick of going to our town pools. Granted, they go at least once a week with their camp, however, there are two extraordinary pools in our fair city and we've only been there, as a family five times (I've been counting).

After many years of chasing one kid or another away from the deep end, they're finally at that enviable stage where they can go off on their own, within the confines of the limited pool grounds, and I can sit back and relax. They find friends or, if desperate enough, will actually play TOGETHER (something they do NOT do at home). I chat with people I only see during the Summer, read, write, and try to con myself to get my butt in the water and swim laps.

Convincing myself is the excruciating part. Once I'm in the water, I swim 12 laps. Okay, it's at a snail's pace, but at least I do it. The water is cool, the smell of chlorine refreshing and there's something delightful about kicking around, like a child, enjoying the pleasure of moving my legs through the water. I look around at the kids, splashing and having fun, and I am at peace. Again, once I'm actually IN the pool.

Sadly, I have deterred myself from swimming a few times for flimsy reasons. “I don't have enough time,” “the lap pool is too busy,” and “the kids will never be able to find me,” are some of the stupid excuses I've used. And I always regret not swimming. I've even given the kids passes on going because they're too “pooled out.”

Well, not today! Their dad is home and he's in a GO-GO-GO mood. While I usually loathe those moods, I'm taking advantage of it while the day is fairly young and we're hauling complaining, child tushies to the pool. I WILL get my rumpus in the water and I WILL HAVE A GOOD TIME.

Sometimes parents have to do what's right for themselves and the opinions of their children be damned. Today is one of those days! Suck it up, kids. Momma gotta swim! 

This looks more like me..except with a bathing suit top on...and without the hairy chest.

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Thank you for reading!   Please come back again.  I want to tell you about my - seriously - life-changing vacuum.  And NO, it's not a compensated post.  Wait until you hear about this thing!  

Who Says NJ Is Ugly?

Mom's Playing Hookey

Portable hammock chair?  Check.  Fully-charged cellphone?  Check.  Tote bag packed with sunscreen, water, protein bars, books, pens?  Check.  Purse?  Check.  I gave instructions to the kids before school:  "Do NOT go to the nurse with anything less than broken bones today.  Mom's playing hookey at the beach."


I was always fond of the ocean, but my feelings grew a few summers ago when we vacationed in Cape Cod.  The ocean breeze cooled the hot flashes that had signaled the start of menopause.  The roar of the waves distracted me from the tinnitus I've lived with most of my life and made the slight hearing loss I'd been struggling with less noticeable.  I mean, no one speaks softly at the beach.  My love became voracious this summer during a trip to San Diego, which is my idea of Heaven On Earth.  There were so many pristine beaches, each more beautiful than the last!   I stood on the shores of Torrey Pines, willing my senses to memorize every sensation. The combination of sun, surf, and sand was intensely cleansing.  Leaving California was painful.

Unfortunately, my children do not share my love of the beach.  They tolerate it at best.  Although they love each other, thrown together, without video screens to distract them, my kids spend much of the time at the Shore fighting.  My husband, who enjoys the beach, though not as much as I do, tries to distract the kids, but it's no use.  It's no fun.

So when school started, I announced that I was going to take at least one day a month to see the ocean.  The much-maligned Jersey Shore is about 90 minutes from my house, too far for my taste, but close enough to make it back in time to pick up my daughter.  Crowded and obscenely expensive during the summer, it becomes quiet is free in the off-season.  Parts of it are breathtakingly beautiful, depending on how far from the New York area you want to go.  The place I go has a new pavilion, rebuilt after Hurricane Sandy, with clean bathrooms and street parking.  It's frequented by older people and mothers carrying toddlers, so there are just enough people around in case anything was to happen but not enough to mess with serenity.

Peace is mine there.  Most often, I sit on a chair at the pavilion and read or write.  Then I take off my shoes and schlep my bag to the edge of the water.  Sometimes I wade in, the waves licking at the bottom of my capris.  Then I sit...and remember other times when I've been at the ocean.  We went to Ocean City, Maryland for a few summers when my son was little.  There, I gazed at the ocean and dreamed of the baby girl we were adopting, so far away, across the water, in China.  I remembered, when I was single, the many cruises I took, by myself, not to meet anyone but just to experience the vastness of the ocean.  I remember other trips I've taken and beaches I've been on in Hawaii, Florida, Singapore, Italy, England, and Jamaica.   I smile, thinking of my honeymoon in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands; my husband and I lieing in a hammock, looking out at the ocean, and planning our future together..

It's good that the kids don't like the ocean.  It's MY space, one the kids at present cannot appreciate.  With only a simple tote bag as luggage, my day is a mini-vacation, the ocean a retreat.  Playing hookey there is like medication for my soul, soothing it and making me a calmer mother and a better person.  It is my gift to myself.