Just another beautiful day poolside

I love the summer. As a stay at home mom, one of the luxuries I afford my little ones is time at the pool. Every summer since CT was little, we would purchase a pool pass and every nice day we would pack-up ourselves and our lunches and spend the morning frolicking in the pool.

Today, with the sun shining and a high of 80 degrees, was going to be no different. Everyone packed-up, got their suits and sun screen on, grabbed what they wanted to play with and we headed off to the pool.

Once everyone and everything spilled out of the van, we put KP in the stroller, walked into the recreation center, admitted ourselves with our pool passes, took potty breaks, walked through the bathroom and then out past the concession stand and finally to the pool. All the while CT was asking for his goggles. We will get them once we get situated, I kept saying.

The towels got put on the sun chairs, the swim diaper got pulled on, the sandals came off and then I started looking for the goggles. I suddenly remembered that CT had them in the car and they were not in the bag at all, like I had thought. I tried to gently break the news to CT that the goggles were still in the car. He simply said, well let’s go get them, and my response to that was, no.

The thought of packing everyone up to simply go back to the car to get goggles is not easy, nor is it worth it, or so I thought.

So, I stood my ground with my decision. And, the shit hit the fan; trembling lip turning into a flood of tears, screaming at the top of his voice, kicking me-the stroller-the water, hitting the sun chair-the ground-his leg, and then yelling some more. It was a full-blown tantrum. I remained calm and tried to tell him that this one time he would be ok without his goggles and then equally as calmly told him, that if he didn’t stop this behavior right now we would leave. As the crowd of women and children looked on at the car accident that was taking place right before their eyes, I pulled the plug on the pool.

I manhandled my 50 pound, very strong, very lanky son into the seat of the stroller and buckled the WAY TOO SMALL buckles around him, just to gain some control. All the while he continued to flail, kick and scream, flail, kick and scream, and then flailed, kicked and screamed some more.

Then I had the opportunity to gather up little soaking wet PJ, who kept running away from me deeper and deeper into the water, wanting so badly to stay and play. Please keep in mind, I am doing this all one handed, because the littlest one is hanging onto me for dear life wondering what the *&$# is going on.

This is just not the way I wanted my pre-race day to go.

Now, on the other hand, I could take this white hot rage and unleash it tomorrow! Yeah, now that’s a good idea.

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