Sporty!

This is what it’s like to take a group swimming lesson with my kid and his preschool class.

Me: Hey, there’s your teacher.
Him: (blank stare)
Me: (waving) Hi Miss Teacher!
Him: (blank stare)
Me: (nudging) Trombone! Your teacher!
Him: Can we go now?

Maybe it’s something to do with seeing your teacher and all your classmates and their parents in bathing suits. It certainly was interesting to see these relatively casual acquaintances almost naked. I was amazed how many dads were there.

The cheap joke, of course, is that they wanted to see the ladies in bathing suits.

But truly I believe it is because the moms didn’t want to put suits on. (Except for sporty mom. Sporty mom was there. And in your business mom. Of course. And me. I wonder what they call me? After yesterday, Mismatched Suit with Hairy Pits Mom, probably.)

After the lesson, which was more an exercise in keeping Trombone’s attention focused on one thing long enough that he didn’t wander off to the deep end to drown, I decided we would change our clothes in the Women’s change room. The family change room at this pool had codes for the stalls with doors and I didn’t know the code. And I really didn’t want to get Super Totally Naked with the classmates and teachers and dads.

Of course at 11 am on a Thursday, the Women’s change room was full of women who make their trip to the community pool “The Total Spa Experience.” Loofahs and smelly soaps and shampoo and conditioner and facial cleanser and toner JUST GET THE CHLORINE OFF AND GET OUT OF THE SHOWER! Do men do that too? Bring the whole fucking bathroom entourage with them to the community pool? God it’s annoying. Anyway, so we didn’t shower. We went straight to the big communal changing area and that gave Trombone something to focus on: lots of gigantic naked women.

No, no, backtrack. They were physically average women in every way. But he is not quite four. Imagine a not-quite-four year old sitting wrapped in a towel, surrounded by grown up, naked women who are ever so luxuriously powdering themselves and patting themselves dry and applying moisturizer. And staring back at him.

It was quite a scene. I wonder if he will recollect it in some expensive therapy session / tell-all memoir someday.

In other news, Trombone and Fresco are both obsessed OBSESSED obsessed with Stompin’ Tom Connors singing The Hockey Song. Trombone actually knows most of the words. Fresco’s version goes:

Hello there onna air hockey night TONIGHT
bump jump puck anna ICE
THE END

They have a habit of singing it in public, which makes the Public Adore Them because of course the Canucks are in the playoffs and aren’t those wee hockey fans adorable! OK except neither of them knows the first thing about hockey, they just like Stompin’ Tom.

Until the other day when Trombone saw a book about hockey at the library and made me take it out. Jesus. Here we go. This is NOT WHAT I WANTED.

And then, of course, I had to (as in, they were a buck each and I canna resist a deal) buy them wee hockey sticks at Value Village and now they’re getting quite good at batting things around with the sticks.

Next stop: Tim Hortons in my minivan.

We think the book, incidentally, is quite bad. It’s called Clancy With the Puck and it’s a so-called clever nod to Casey at the Bat. SA puts it ever so diplomatically when the children are nearby, because they really like the book and we don’t want them to know we don’t like it, “Dr. Seuss really had a gift.”

As does Stompin’ Tom.

As do people who teach preschoolers to swim.

Go ‘Nucks!