Swimming at the pool

I tell myself I make the children attend swimming lessons for fitness and self esteem, but in reality it is so I can feel more confident they won’t drown.

Truth is, This is a load of bull… I never learnt to swim and haven’t drowned… really teaching the children to swim gives them more confidence, maybe false confidence, so increases their chances of drowning!

OMG I’m setting my children up to drown…. ;)

This entire ramble is because we have just got back from the pool.

Each Monday I psych myself to deal with the time between school pick up and leaving the pool…. It is a stressful couple of hours, I’ve organised it so I only have 6 children to oversee… (Happy about this… 1 less can make a BIG difference)

Pre-Primary finishes at 3.05pm, the rest of the school finishes later…. Don’t know the exact time… 3.10? 3.15? When ever it finishes, It doesn’t finish soon enough!
By the time we get the year 4, pre-primary, 3year old and baby in the car it never gives me enough time to get to the other school to collect the other 2 girls. 7km feels like 70 when you know you are running late!
From there it is about 3 or 4 km to get to the pool. And swimming lessons for 2 of the children start at 3.30!
Yep, we have about 10 minutes at the most to get it all done, my yr 4 child generally picks Monday to get held back, I swear it is a conspiracy! (Today he got out on time yay)

We are that frazzled looking family that always appears 5 minutes after the lesson has started, with very grumpy children…. Trying to finish of the basics as we walk in such as hair/ goggles… head count.
Kids can disappear like magic between the car and the swimming lesson point!

Finally 2 are with their swimming instructor. The 5 year old is giving the teacher death stares, and I over hear the teacher ask her if she WANTS to try get her head under, Miss T defiantly says NO! That is that, she was asked, she answered, in her mind lesson is over.
I pretend not to hear this as I want to get the rest organised, so walk off leaving the teacher to attempt to win a battle she has already lost by asking what Miss T "wants".

Glance over to the other child in lessons… *Proud moment* he is actually swimming!

A and S both have swim-club, they pretty much organise themselves and join in (late as that also starts at 3.30)
Miss Z is starving, I swear this baby is a bottomless pit… thinks she is always starving at the most impractical times.
3yr old is desperate to splash in the baby pool. Clothes/ bathers, he doesn’t see any difference. *sigh* Convince him to get changed into his bathers, after he already got in fully dressed. Bub is REALLY starved now, Sit on the side feeding Z, whilst trying to get eye contact with Miss T to glare at her. I think she knows I’m trying to do this and looks everywhere other than at me.
4pm, this lesson is over!!! Time get Miss S out of swim club and into her lesson. Today this worked well, it often doesn’t though.
Miss T and Mr M both go and play in the middle pool, I try not to look too much at them, each time I do I want to scream at them to stop something. Miss T now has a head of WET hair, she CAN get her head under…. Just not for the teacher!

Bub vomits, reflux is something I feel should have been given to other peoples babies, we don’t have time for reflux ;)

As usual the lifeguards have words to me about Mr T in the baby pool. He gets a wrist band that I translate to….
‘Child has crap mother who won’t get in with him…. HIGH RISK’
Apparently I have to get IN with him in the baby pool…. Ummmm… Not happening… each week we have the same discussion…. I’m one of the few mums that are right at the side! Grrr… anyway, DS at least now loves his wrist band… the 1st 2 times he had a melt down over it…. I’ve convinced him it is a special present :)

4.30pm, Lessons are over for today, Swim-club is winding up….

We can go!!!!!

Sometimes we brave the showers etc… not today though, the hour and a half felt like an eternity. We round up the drowned looking tribe, wrap in mass towels, load up like pack horses… … and leave.

YAY…. Another Monday pool afternoon done!:)