Pool Fiasco

Today is one of those days where I truly feel like it's the worst day ever. Of course it's not, but emotionally, I feel like my world is ending.

We just got home from the community pool. Let me explain... This morning the girls had their swimming lessons. Monday was their first day for the session, and for Allie's class they had all the preschool-age kids meet together to sort them out into classes according to skill and willingness to take risks. I had put Allie in lessons in May, and they had put her into the beginning class out of the three. For some reason, this time they put her in the third class with all the five-year-olds. So yesterday she was jumping in the pool in the 5 ft. end like a maniac. Made me nervous, but I was glad she was doing it and having fun, 'cause the minute she gets scared, then she stops being cooperative. Today she decided she was scared, and all I heard throughout the lesson was Allie screaming about not wanting to cooperate. Lovely. It always makes me want to hold my head up high when my daughter isn't cooperating with authority. I sure hope you sense the sarcasm in that. Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention the battle we had this morning just trying to get the kid to put her swimming suit on so that we could even go in the first place. She wanted to go, oh yes, but just had no concept of time-- that the class would start at a certain point in time, with or without her.

Anyhow, as we're driving home from their lessons, I try asking Allie why she was feeling scared, but, darn it all, she still hasn't grasped the meaning of the word "why," and couldn't give me a helpful answer. Arrrg! I suddenly got the idea to stop at the community pool to practice. So, I asked her if she wanted to do that, and she was game, so I raced home to grab Sami's floatie and we drove back to the pool. There were a few other kids there, but it wasn't too crowded, thankfully. We jumped out of the car, just to get to the pool with Allie holding her crotch.

"Allie, do you have to pee?"

"No," and she starts peeing.

"Allie, stop! Let's go the bathroom." She stopped, and I grabbed her hand, all while holding Sami, and getting a fake smile (which was really a look of disgust) from the other mother in the pool. Allie peed in the toilet, and we got in the pool. She wanted to push off the side of the wall and swim to me, so I let her do that several times. Then I randomly floated on my back and kicked up some water. Allie squealed and asked me to "sleep on my back again" without kicking. I did... just to be stirred by some thrashing and a woman on the side of the pool yelling. Allie had been trying to swim to me. I grabbed her and she was fine, but the woman, who is a neighbor, was pretty concerned and said, "She needs to get some floaties!" A comment that I took as, "If you were a good mom, you'd get her something so she wouldn't drown!" I wasn't in any kind of emotionally stable state to be taking comments like that.

We moved on to Allie jumping int the pool from the side. After about five minutes or so of that, in helping her back onto the side of the pool, I felt something in her swim shorts. That's right-- the little dear had pooped in the pool. I said, "Oh no." And she looked down, ashamed. I pulled her out of the pool and told her not to move. Of course to her that means, "Pull the poop out of your shorts and throw it on the pavement." As I grab Sami and hop out I tell Allie to not move again and my neighbor sees and says, "Oh no!" Did she or anyone offer to help me, as I'm juggling a baby and trying to clean up the mess? Not really. I run and get toilet paper, and my neighbor suggests that her son bring me the trash can. I said I'd just throw it in the toilet, so he didn't help me, but according to him the trashcan was too hot to move anyway. Wimp. No one helped me, no one acknowledged my distress or tried to sympathize at all. They just all hopped out of the pool, totally disgusted with me and my children. You know, the "My children would never be so unruly and disgusting" looks you get. I was mortified and came home and sobbed on the kitchen floor. But now more than anything, in reflection, I'm pretty darn angry at all those people at the pool who didn't bother to lift a finger to help me-- not even the one dad who was there with his son.

I know I'll laugh about all this later, but I haven't gotten to that part of the healing process yet.