The Swimming Situation

Yesterday was hot. After spending an hour at my un-airconditioned house, I decided that I had to do something other than sit and swelter. So rather than roasting, I wandered on over to see if I could go swimming again with KJ in her apartment complex pool.

When I stepped into the cool delicious water holding sweet baby J, there were two munchkiny kids splashing around the shallow end and a mean looking woman watching them who was sitting in a plastic chair by the fence.

{One of the munchkins asked me if I was going to take my baby swimming. I said yes, not bothering to correct her.}

ANYWAYS I was very busy enjoying my swim with baby J whilst pretending that he was in fact MY OWN BABY when I was mightily distracted by the commotion coming from the shallow end of the pool. The lemon faced lady was all sorts of yelling at the two munchy-kins to get the heck out of the pool and they were screaming right back at her with insistent "No!"s and such.

But as I was busy minding my own beeswax, I tried to ignore the spectacle that was enfolding in the shallow end of the pool. And a moment later, when I heard a clanging noise from that very direction, myself and the rest of the pool looked over to see the crazy pucker-faced lady attempting to LASSO the girl with the lifeguard pole. Finally after the child had slippery-slipped her way out of the loop at the end one too many times, angry face demanded that one of the other swimmers fetch the child from the pool.

All eyes were on the poor young woman in the black bikini who obediently and gently pushed the wayward child toward the steps.  She nervously chided the girl "you should do what your...um..."and then paused as everyone wondered if the lemon faced woman could actually be the mother. And the angry woman practically spat "mother!" for the poor younger woman as she yanked her child by the wrist out of the pool and marched her off to the other side of the gate. The other swimmers quietly whispered or chuckled at the awkwardness of the whole situation and looked at each other in horror. Just on the other side of the gate, the little girl wrenched free from her mother's grasp and threw the big pink bouncy swim ball she was holding back at the woman with angry defiance and then ran from her.

The air was thick with hanging judgement when another mom with two kids laughed and declared to the whole pool that her kids could never claim she was a mean mom again and we all dissolved into relieved laughter.