Swimming Lessons

Mommy & Me Swim Class is a special form of torture. Islamic militants wouldn’t come up with anyyhing this frustrating and annoying. The torture begins immediately following the registration process when I realize I’m going to be shoving my post-baby body into a swimsuit out in public, and exposing areas of my skin to sunlight that have been hibernating for quite some time. So I begin shopping for a suit, which is actually a recognized form of torture in some cultures. I end up spending a lot of money ordering one online late at night in my basement, after cringing at endless possibilities on my “Virtual Model.” I decide on a skirted bottom to cover my pregnancy- induced varicose veins, and a top which I can reasonably breastfeed in without getting arrested. By the time I’m going through this process again with my second child, the bottom of the suit is now a full size larger than the top. Nice.

Once my suit is taken care of, I head to Target for swimsuits for the kids. Not the wedgie- inducing, “I can’t go to the bathroom by myself, Mom” kind, but the shorts-and-tee-shirts kind that doesn’t even really look like a swimsuit. They do, however, offer SPF 8000+ protection even when wet. My real motivation for purchasing this kind of suit is it makes for much less skin I have to apply sunscreen on. Ah, sunscreen. Every day it’s the same battle. You’d think they would get used to it. I’ve used the lotion kind, the spray kind, the dry-spray kind – they all result in coaxing, bribes, crying and whining. And that’s just to get the kids to come near enough for me to do a drive-by spray.

We arrive at the swimming pool and lug our giant bag of towels, goggles, flip-flops, swim diapers and extra clothes over to a picnic table. My preschooler, who was thrilled to go to swimming lessons this morning, is now acting like I’m trying to dunk her in a pool of hydrochloric acid. After ten minutes of wheedling, begging, threatening and bribing, she eventually calms down and joins her class. I head to the little pool with my toddler, who is clinging to me like I’m about to loan her to a pack of wild dogs for snack time.

Why is the water never warm? It is 90 degrees outside and the pool water is turning my kids’ lips blue. My new swimsuit skirt is now floating up around my middle and my kid is hanging on to my top so tight, we are about to turn swim lessons into a peep show. At least most of the other moms look like me: uncomfortable in their new bodies (or no-so-new in my case), trying to get our crabby, cold kids to blow bubbles in the pee-pool water.

But there is always one or two of those totally cute moms in the class. You know, the ones who are fit and tan and certainly did NOT just have a C-section. (Okay, okay, so it’s been years since my last C-section, but it feels like it just happened.) The ones who can wear bikinis because they can still locate their abs, much less remember how to exercise them. The one dad in the class is trying to look like he’s enjoying himself without staring at all the ample cleavage bouncing around him.

We do this every day for two weeks. My girls seemed to get the hang of the whole lesson thing, then one day out of the blue, one of them will break down about not wanting to go in the water (or not wanting to go in with the goggles, or without the water shoes, etc, etc.) My preschooler spends half her lesson sitting out on the side of the pool for not listening to the instructor, and the other half swinging around on the step railing. Awesome, Totally worth paying for. If she ever needs to swing around on a railing to save herself from drowning, she’ll be all set.

So why do I do this year after year? Why have I done this Four Times? (Twice for each kid!) Well, obviously I want my kids to know how to swim. But besides that, I want my girls to see me, stretch marks and all, helping them learn a valuable skill. I don’t want them to think they shouldn’t wear a swimsuit unless the have a “perfect” body. I am trying to raise confident, capable young ladies. And if I hide behind my comfortable (i.e. body-covering) clothes and sit on the sidelines, choosing not to participate, what does that teach them?

So here I am, in my swimsuit, in the cold pool, cheering for my kids when they put their faces in the water like they’ve just won an Olympic medal. And I’ll be here next summer, if need be. And hopefully my kids will grow up to have a healthy, positive body image. Although hopefully by next summer they will have invented swimsuits that keep you warm, don’t cling, tan you without damaging your skin, and give you a non-surgical tummy tuck. And hopefully by then making new moms squeeze into swimsuits in public and drag crying children into cold pools will actually be recognized as torture by the UN. Well, self-imposed torture, anyway.