Suiting Up

I struggle with my weight. As a Lifetime Member of Weight Watchers, I have decided that this means I will spend the duration of my lifetime watching my weight. Watching it go up, probably.

Previously, I have outlined my feelings about wearing a swimsuit in public. I despise it, and happen to live in a neighborhood FULL of ‘Beautiful People.’ My children love the pool and hanging out with their friends, and I don’t want to punish them because of my own insecurities, so I suck it up, suck it in, and head to the pool.

A few days ago, I took them to the pool for an evening swim. I figured they’d splash around, tire themselves out, come home, get a bath and go to bed. It was all part of my master plan to watch Real Housewives of New Jersey in peace after they were asleep and perhaps enjoy a glass or three of wine get them some exercise and help them burn some of their boy energy in a healthy manner.

This is the first summer I feel like I can sit within the confines of the baby pool and keep an eye on the older two in the big pool without fear of them drowning. . . not so much because of their swimming skills, but because they can reach the bottom of the pool with their feet.

I took Small over to the baby pool because he exhausts me in the big pool. He has NO fear of water, which is nice, except when he takes off at a sprint and jumps into the pool five feet from where I’m waiting for him with my arms outstretched.

Upon closing the gate, I noticed my friend M’s Hubby was sitting on the side of the baby pool watching their youngest splash around. Hmmmm . . . I thought. I’ll walk gracefully over to M’s Hubby and engage him in polite and sophisticated conversation, perhaps about the upcoming presidential election or Lindsey Lohan’s most recent run-in with The Law.

As I approached the baby pool, I watched Small jump in right at the one-foot mark. That’s 12 inches, or approximately the size of one step on a stairwell.

Do you know what’s NOT approximately the size of one step on a stairwell? The 1 foot, 10 inch section of the pool where M’s Hubby was sitting, and where I decided to step in.

I entered the pool as if I were Wile E. Coyote stepping off a cliff in a Roadrunner clip. Meep-meep.

I fell in, lost my balance and landed on my *ss, no doubt making a splash big enough to cause a tsunami at the beach-entry end of the pool. I imagine babies were flying into their parents’ arms as if they had been catapulted. M’s Hubby was struck mute with a look of shock/horror and open-mouthed awe at the acrobatics he had just witnessed.

I picked myself up and sat on the edge of the pool next to him, and of course my swimsuit made that uber-flattering slushy-squishy sound as it met the wet pavement. Super.

“You know,” I said, “you’d think I’d be embarrassed, but the fact is this kind of stuff happens to me so often, all I can do is shrug my shoulders and wait for the next time I commit some act of self-humiliation.”

It wasn’t awkward at all . . .

Happy Fourth of July! Do your plans include ‘suiting up?’

Jennifer is a stay-at-home mommy to three boys. Her daily goal is to keep her head out of the oven. See if she succeeds at Boy Mommy