Last week, my blog topic focused on my attempt at an hour of self absorption and my older boys’ attempts to keep me in check.

And all things considered, I will say that once your kids can swim on their own, a pool can be your (and their) best friend, and when I say that I am talking about small neighborhood pools or even pools like my gym has, which might have some fun features like slides and fountains, but the size of them are not particularly threatening. These pools allow for fun to be had by your underwater swimming children while you might, as I mentioned last week, get to log in some Selfish Mommy Time (which I wholeheartedly and shamelessly recommend every now and then).

But if those pools are what I’d consider my Blue Heaven, I feel free to announce that quite the opposite (my Blue Hell?) is the public pool.

Because? Read on…

Living in the suburbs as I do, my family and I have many many different kinds of pool options. There are those I’ve described above, which sprout all about the different subdivisions, plus several “Family Life Centers” which offer a place to swim as a perk of (astronomical) monthly membership fees. Also within a two mile radius of my driveway? About 5 public pools. The names of them usually begin with whatever city limits you are in, plus the words “Aquatic Center”. I guess this is to insinuate that it is not just a pool that you’re paying $6 a person to get into, it’s a freaking water park, dammit.  So come with expectations high.

A week into summer vacation last Friday, the boys were begging me to go to such an aquatic center. One week and they are already needing more than just a ledge and 6 feet of water to keep them happy. They need diving boards. High, scary ones that maybe once in my past, I might have conquered but now, I’d probably fall off the ladder just from the shaking that my legs would be doing. They need lazy rivers. They need pixie sticks to be available for $2 a piece. They need lifeguards whistling at them to WALK! (oops, maybe they could do without that). Whatever it is, they wanted to go to a place that offered those amenities.

FYI regarding places that offer those amenities: if there is an ambulance parked at the entrance with flashing lights when you drive into the parking lot, entering the “aquatic center” is a bad bad idea.

NOT because it’s a sign that the lifeguards are most likely checking Facebook while supposedly, um, guarding our lives, but because IF ambulance services are needed at the pool, more than likely it means that time is standing still inside the pool facility.

Which means no swimming.

I’m able to share that advice now, but that doesn’t mean I’d seen the light yet. I foolishly allow the cashier to admit us for $24 and after fishing Adam out of the women’s locker room (to where he’d snuck off while I was trying to convince the cashier that I was owed not $4 but $16 in change since I’d handed her two $20 bills), we step through the pearly gates to find a completely silent and empty pool, except for a couple lifeguards who were attending to some teenager lying motionless on the side by the waterslide. Also about a gatrillion people standing around watching.

Don’t worry, he was going to be OK in the end. I checked with someone who’d witnessed the entire event. I also heard the kid say “Dude, check me out” to one of his friends standing nearby as he was being wheeled out to his chariot. And I’m not calling him a pansy, as I once fractured my skull and was really hurt, despite what I was able to call out to any peers who may have been watching.

IF Logan and Ryan, ages 8 and 7 and being of the Typical Population, spent some time whining and moaning and whening and whying about the fact that it seems Coast Guard Law requires a pool to be cleared when any type of head injury takes place no matter how big the pool, let me have you visualize the reaction from Adam, age 4 and of the Special Population Sub Category Autism. Let’s just say that anyone who was there at the time probably talked about me and my children at dinner that night. And not favorably. I will say that I made some good use of my time by leaning over,pointing to the injured lad and whispering to Ryan, “That’s what happens when you do flips off the diving board.” I don’t know if that’s what the victim had been doing, for all I know, he could have been hit in the head by a soaker ball, but I know an opportunity when I see one and trust me, Ryan will never, ever in his lifetime think of doing such a thing after that. Or, at least I did my part, anyway.

After watching (well what else could we do?) the paramedics strap the kid onto that spinal stabilizer thing that’s always resting ominously against the lifeguard shack covered with dust, place him on a stretcher, and then wheel him through the crowd to the waiting ambulance, we’re finally given the synchronized tweeeeeeeet of approval from the lifeguards’ whistles to recommence swimming activities.

Logan and Ryan blast off like rockets trying to reach an alternate universe, leaving Adam and I to head up to the Under 7 area, which is a separate area from the main pool.

If, as I mentioned in last week’s post and above, I am able to use my gym’s pool as a tool for relaxation disguised as Quality Time with my kids, trust me when I say that at the public pool, I am anything but relaxed and am probably uber-focused on my boys. In fact, I mostly stand at attention the entire time. I don’t care how many lifeguards there are and how carefully they are watching, I’m convinced that Logan and Ryan have instantly sunk to the bottom of the deepest end and won’t be discovered until the pool is drained in the fall. All kinds of scenarios go through my mind that would get them there…an older and bigger bully grabs them by their heads and dunks them until they run out of air, they get stuck in the grate (not an urban legend anymore) at the bottom, they get jumped on by a giant frat boy home from college because they didn’t get out of the way in time after jumping off the diving boards…you get the idea here.

In addition to tense muscles and high as a kite blood pressure from considering the aforementioned fates, my insides are also beginning to liquefy from the stress of trying so desperately to keep Adam chilled (mentally) and to ensure that he doesn’t do something to some other small child that might result in the return of the ambulance. Yes, I’m being dramatic here. It’s just that autism and public wading pools don’t always get along. If there’s not some unattended child whose mom is ignoring the fact that he/she is pissing off all the other kids by dumbing ice cold water on their heads, then there’s some other really sweet but overbearing child who cannot understand why Adam doesn’t want to play house or pretend he’s the pirate and she’s the princess, or some other game that requires a degree in social and pretend play skills. Don’t get me wrong, little social butterflies in the making by themselves are cute as can be but around Adam, I’m constantly terrified that he will bite off their noses simply because he doesn’t know how to say “Please leave me alone”.

There’s also this small blue slide shaped like a whale that has a spray feature attached. If Adam could call the day perfect, he’d have it all to himself and if I could call the day perfect, maybe I’d be sitting in a lounge chair next to him with a cocktail and a book. Kidding. Nevertheless, he tries his very best to be a good little patient citizen and wait his turn just like he’s been taught in preschool. Watching him, I see how hard this is for him. Not because he can’t wait his turn. Actually, I learn something about my autistic son on this day. I learn that he understands the rules. He just takes them very very literally. If he’s supposed to wait his turn, he stands there and waits until the lifeguard waves him through. When, however, some (90%) of the other toddlers do NOT share the same theory on what it means to stand there and wait for the person in front to have his/her turn and instead push their way to the front, they aren’t met with a “Hey! It’s my turn!” they are greeted with an open mouth full of sharp fangs ready to sink deep into their SPF 50 skin. See my paragraph about how I stand at attention with high blood pressure and tensed muscles.

Adam wants to go down this slide like 10 bazillion times and I’m about to have a stroke from watching him try to cannibalize this one future bully whose mom is chatting on her cell phone 100 yards away and is oblivious to her son’s complete inability to respect general rules of society, so I suggest that we go down to the main pool that has zero depth and yards and yards of space he can claim as his own. Fortunately, he agrees to this and we head down. I suddenly remember I have two other children at this pool and also remember all the horrible things I usually spend time imagining will happen to them. Panicked, I glance all around and am relieved that it only takes me about 30 seconds to locate Ryan waiting in a long line for the diving board and Logan waiting in a similar one for the inner tube slide. Cool. Both in check, although they’re both dry as a board so clearly they’ve been standing in this line pretty much since the cashier agreed with me that $40-$24=$16.

TWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!

Huh? What’s this? ANOTHER INJURY? Oh for Pete’s sakes. Can’t people get through 20 minutes without banging their heads on the side of the pool? Sheesh almighty. Wait a minute, that’s not why the lifeguards are blowing their whistles. Oh, I get it. It’s straight up on the hour. It’s time for the Pool Check. You know, the hourly ritual of making everyone clear the pool so they can see if there’s anyone lying at the bottom of it. Great idea, except that we’ve only had 20 minutes since the last one!  And that one was thorough, please believe me. So, for real? We’re gonna have to stand here again? Can’t the last one where that kid had to be loaded into the ambulance just count? I guess not, as I notice that everyone is actually complying without comment.

“IN FIVE MINUTES, THE ADULT SWIM WILL COMMENCE. WHEN THE WHISTLE BLOWS, ONLY SWIMMERS AGE 16 AND UP WILL BE ALLOWED IN THE WATER,” blares the intercom.

Little sidebar that might be a wee bit off the subject here…I have always always been intrigued by the 5-7 minute “adult swim” session that follows the hourly pool check at any public pool. Why? Because I like to laugh or sneer menacingly at the one or two hotshots that decide they are suddenly going to get out there and swim laps for 5 minutes in front of several hundred spectators whose eyes are burning holes into their Speedos. I have NO problem with people making an attempt at physical fitness, and swimming is a great way to get physically fit. Just know that if you decide to make this attempt during one of the “adult swim” sessions at a public pool, most of the kids or people WITH kids waiting on the side of the pool for you to exercise this right might not think you’re the next Michael Phelps. And the crazy woman with the paisley swimsuit and the dragon’s wings who has the screaming autistic four year old over there? She might want to kill you. If it’s actual exercise you’re looking for and not just attention, I’d suggest finding a public pool with lanes blocked off especially for lap swimmers OR joining a gym that has an indoor pool…you’ll be the one who has the right of way there and it’ll be YOUR turn to want to kill ME when my sons are stealing all the kick boards and using them as surfboards over in the “family lane”. Ditto for when you’re trying to relax in the hot tub and Ryan jumps in next to you cannonball style.

Sorry, like I said, off the subject.  And I don’t really want to kill anyone. I was just trying to make a point about being amused by people trying to swim laps in the zero depth area just because it’s their “appointed time”… ANYWAY…

After the whistle finally blows signaling our constitutional right to return to the pool, I’m greeted by Logan and Ryan, who if water has touched them today, it clearly hasn’t since they brushed their teeth, judging by their bone dry swimming suits and lack of pool water flattened hair.

“We’re ready to go,”they chime in unison, as if they’ve been practicing for the last 30 yards.

Apparently, the amount of time they’ve spent standing in line for the very things that attracted them to this pool in the first place has taken its toll and they’re ready to throw in the towel (hee hee, get it?) before they even get to sample them. I, however, have $24 and a bite mark on my arm that says they’re going down that slide and off that diving board like 700 times  or until they graduate from high school.  So get busy, gentlemen. I wanna see you go down backwards, sideways and upside down. Oh yes, Mommy is watching this time. You betcha. Hope you don’t need that ambulance…

In conclusion, the point is…sometimes a trip to the pool is half about me and half about them. They get to swim and splash, I get to catch up on the latest redundant celebrity gossip and maybe lose the horrific yellow color I seem to turn during the winter. And sometimes? It’s 100% all about them and 0% about me, or more like -5%, judging from the fact that when I return home from this public pool adventure, I am in serious need of anti anxiety medication with a side of martini, yet all three of them (even Adam, in his own way) talk of how much fun they had, how they saw an ambulance, how they saw someone being put in an ambulance, how there was a blue whale slide with sprinklers attached, how they dug a big hole in the sand area and filled it with water from the baby pool (somewhere out there a mom is blogging about obnoxious, sandy 8 year olds filling buckets with water from the pool her toddler daughter is trying to splash in and I’m so sorry)…

Gotta love pool season. Last pool post, I promise!!

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