When Days are Hot, When Days are Cool

Last Wednesday was the final day of Henry's first round of swimming lessons.  He got a little certificate with his name on it that listed all of things he is able to do. Enter the water. Float with help. Move through the water. I had a real moment when I saw this.  It was amazing to me that someone else had written his name and evaluated the things he'd done.  Unfortunately my nostalgia was cut very short.

Henry had missed his morning nap as I left the house early to run an errand prior to going to the pool.  I overestimated the amount of time that I would need, resulting in us arriving almost half an hour early at the pool.

Instead of walking him around or hanging out in the car, I decided we should get into the pool early.  Not a great mommy decision.  Swimming lessons are usually half an hour long, and generally the little guy is pretty pooped by the end.  So, by extending his time in the pool by about 15 minutes, and factoring in the nap he missed, he hit his end about 15 minutes into the lesson.

Henry went from super-fun Aqua man to super-unfun screamy man.  Luckily, someone's kid (not in swimming lessons) pooped in the pool just at that moment.

Everyone was asked to clear the pool and we all ran for the exits, holding the babies high out of the water, presumably away from the floating offender.  I took this as an convenient excuse to take our leave of swimming lessons for the day, and go get Henry warm and fed.

Henry has several screaming gears.   1st gear is sort of mild complaining.  2nd is intermittent crying and yelling.  3rd gear is constant crying in a still-tolerable decibel range.  4th gear requires hearing protection if you are exposed for longer than 30 seconds at a time.  When we entered the change room, Henry was somewhere around 6th gear.

Holding him in one arm, I opened our locker and managed to paw everything out onto the wet floor.  I grabbed his towel and clothes and went into one of the stalls that has a bench about 8 inches wide.  Henry reached 8th gear at this point, and the magnification effect from the fully tiled change room created a noise that would make anyone nuts.

There is a relatively large group of developmentally disabled adults that swim with their aides at the same time as our lessons. Due to the early evacuation from the pool they all funnelled into the change room at the same time and I entered with the unhappy Henry.

After about 3 minutes of banshee-like screeching, one of the ladies reaches her end from Henry's screaming.  She loses it, and starts screming "STOP THE BABY! STOP THE BABY! STOP THE BABY!" over and over again.  To her benefit, I felt like doing the same thing. I'm amazed that it didn't trigger some kind of riot alarm.  I start to go to the happy place in my head, away from the strange hell into which I`ve descended.

I manage to get Henry out of his swim suit and into clothes.  He continues hollering.  I mix a bottle and stick it in the gaping, wailing hole in his face.  I've begun to freeze at this point as I was still soaking wet and realized that I had forgotten my own towel at home.  Avoiding the inevitable, I let the little beast feed for about 5 minutes and then try to remove the bottle in order to allow myself to quickly throw some clothes on.

Big mistake.

He ratchets up to 10th gear (I think this translates to, "Mother, I was enjoying that bottle and would appreciate it if you could please return it to my mouth.  Thank you and you look lovely today."), which causes the lady in the next change room to chime back in.  I give the bottle back and attempt to wedge him against the tiny changing bench while balancing his bottle with my leg.  I give up on toweling off and simply tug my clothes onto my freezing, wet self.  I have to pee.

Peeing while holding an infant is a challenge.  The pants down part is OK, as is the important part, but getting your pants back up is tough.  I urge everyone to go try this.  Try it with an wet, angry cat and you'll likely get a fairly accurate representation of how things should go. 

Unfortunately at this point I, without realizing, fumbled the "easy part", getting my pants off and free off the impending flood.  I manage to pee all down the back of my pants.  As I feel the back of my legs warm, it has become painfully clear that this is a lost cause.  I give up.

I pull my soaked pants back up, stick the baby under one arm, grab our giant, wet swimming bag and quickly run past the other moms.  Henry is asleep by the time we get to the car and  I drive home sitting on 2 burp cloths, alternating between crying and laughing. 

At least no one died.