Suck it up, suck it in

Teena has been taking swimming classes at our YMCA for several months now. She loves it, she loves water, she loves a bath, she loves the pool. Love, love love. This week was the last in this rotation of classes and wouldn't you know, as an extra special treat for the parents, parents get to go in the pool with their kids. Woo. Hoo.

Now I know we have already established that I am extremely hair-removal impaired. So, just the suggestion of getting out a bathing suit sends me in to a panic attack. Then, as is historically required for Women of the North, you know, a person gains a few when the temperature is nothing or less. Temps lower than zero degree's would be illegal in my perfect world, but it is really unfair that the frigid cold forces a persons body into triggering some weird hibernation mechanism from a million years ago and creates an extra load of weight apparently designed to sit just exactly over the rim of a persons jeans. Okay, I made all that up but it sounded like a great excuse to cover for all my cookie eating these past few months.

I have two bathing suits. I bought them both about a year after having Teena when I realized that no bathing suit would ever be my friend again. They are "tank-ini's", which is a cutesy thing to call a one- piece suit cut in half, and they both have matching skirts- just in case. Oh yeah and, neither one has ever been wet, although they both have visited many forms of water. See I love to go to the beach and I love to go to the pool. Nowhere in that sentence does it say I love to go in the water because I don't.

As much as I didn't want to, I knew this was one of those things I was going to have to suck up. I have dreaded it all week. Not only do I not care for swimming but I really don't care for a bunch of 5 year olds splashing around and getting me wet. Ugh. Then with the shaving, and the sucking it in and my personal changing room phobias. But it also was one of those things, Teena would never forgive me if I forgot or blew it off, and Teena would remember it the rest of her life if I went in the pool with her during her little class. I knew she would love it even more than cake.

Today was the last day of the class so I knew that this was it. We missed the last parent day because we were on vacation but this time, there was no excuse. I tend to mess up things like this, I forget to write it down or I write it down and forget to look so I even went out to the pool and asked for confirmation. Indeed, today was the day. All right. Stripped off my clothes and stuffed my dignity into a half sized locker. Sucked in the marshmallow that lives over my waistband and went out with Teena, who was indeed beside herself with excitement.

I was the only one. I was the only parent who remembered and the only parent who sucked it up and went in the pool. ARGHHHH!!!