10 - Missing a Spot. Not while parking. You got a killer space in the shade. But after a long-ass walk to the entrance with your 10lb bag, taunting 5YO and whining 2YO, you get into the locker room only to realize that you missed a(n important) spot shaving.
9 - Carrying the 2YO. Everywhere. She doesn’t even want to be held, but too bad for her. Because if positioned correctly, her torso and legs double as the perfect Gut Shield.
8 - Warm Water. The smell of it. Puddled around the sprinkler area.
7 - Warm Water. The feel of it. On your bare feet while leading your 5YO through the bathroom. She swore she didn’t have to go. And then came the emergency that didn’t allow time for you to grab your flip-flops.
6 - 90s music. You rock out to every single song you hear. Even the ones you HATED when they were actually on the radio. It’s like being in a foreign land and finding that one other person who speaks Soundgarden.
5 – Rain. As soon as you get into the pool it pours. But you’re NOT going home. You wait out the rain, which makes everything more fun for some reason, and when it’s over you realized that you forgot to move your bag and towels under an umbrella before the sky opened up.
4 - Fully Dressed People in the Pool. Really? We’re supposed to be in this together. The whole “jeans-and-t-shirt” look in the pool look doesn’t work when we all know you paid $15 a head to get in. Aren’t there sanitation rules against this?
3 - Getting Wedged in the Twisty Slide. And being pushed free by the feet of the (impatient) kid behind you (who couldn’t wait his turn) just as you started to move again.
2 - The Clump of Seaweed on your Shoulder when you Emerge from the Water. Only you’re not at the beach. And it’s hair seaweed.
1 - Deciding this is THE YEAR to Let Them Play Alone in the Kiddie Pool. So you sit back with your book. And when you find an occasion to look up, you see your 5YO being helped out of a floatie by another mom. You rush over, full of thanks and embarrassment, and the other mom responds by asking if the 2YO is also yours. The smiling 2YO who has diarrhea seeping out of her swim diaper. And less than 5 minutes after your arrival (and only 48 hours after you posted this) you are inadvertently responsible for the evacuation of the baby pool.
You hadn’t planned for your summer catchphrase to be, “We Came, We Dumped, We Conquered,” but it is. Congratulations.
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Oh, lordy! hahahahah! They keep you on your toes.
#4 – guilty as charged.
Boooo.
(I still love you, though. Magnet OCD and all.)
Hair seaweed? Evacuate the kiddo pool? Was this all in one visit or over the course of the summer? I’m not sure that I could go back after all of that happened.
Definitely over the course of the last month. I would never, EVER be able to deal if it all happened in one day.
I SO hated summer pool time.
And I was so glad when my kids developed vampire crushes and swore never to go out in the sun again.
It makes you think twice before wishing for summer time “fun” in the dead of winter, no? And Lord, do I hate going into the restroom with a toddler who is potty training and trying not to think about what it is I am stepping in!! YELCH!
Hair seaweed, now that is something beyond gross. Oh I so feel for you, although this is so very funny to read I was at the same time cringing in dread of any and all of these things happening to me. Although the bathroom walk on a warm wet floor I have done, combined with kneeling on said wet floor as potty only using, big toilet refusal to use daughter uses her portable potty, listening to the toilets flushing in the cubicles all around me and trying to hold my breath for fear of what I might otherwise be inhaling. Yuck and double yuck.
OH wow! And we are heading to the pool today!!!! Wish us luck! BTW I love your blog. I read it with my coffee before my 7 yr old wakes up and I feel like it’s ok I’m not alone LOL.
Awwww……ewwwww!
That is too freakin funny. Yeah I remember those days.
I have also been there with the “missing a spot” shaving. That always sucks!
I’m laughing at all of this now because frankly, I’ve not really experienced any of this since I didn’t grow up here. No summertime pool scary stories – YET – although my daughter is becoming that 2 YO you speak of and perhaps I will amass a few of stories of my own by season’s end and recount them later. We took her to an aquatic center last week and they make everyone evacuate the pool every couple of hours to make sure parents take their kids to the bathroom to avoid “fecal incidents” and I thought it was hilarious that they kept repeating – “fecal incidents”. With your example here, perhaps it’s not so funny after all :)
Love it! When do the kids become old enough to play by themselves? I’m always worried they’ll drown, but I’m do jealous if book moms! Guess I’d better keep paying for swim lessons.
http://jendryburgh.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/potty-training2/
Why is it that whenever I miss a spot, it’s a big one? And this is the first year where we haven’t done the We Came, We Sh#@, We Conquered walk of shame.
Hair seaweed is bad, but so are those little “my kid inhaled water and barfed a little bit in the pool” nuggets that you sometimes see floating past you.
I’ve experienced the “fully dressed people in the pool.” My mom is from India and is extremely conservative and so I remember when I was growing up, she would wear a huge T-shirt and capri pants to get into the pool. It made my sister and I cringe; since then she has graduated to a swimsuit.
The warm water….my stomach is turning just thinking of it.
I would add #11- putting wet one-piece bathing suits back on in the bathroom. Kiddo is still wet, the toilet paper sticks, the straps tangle….arrggghhhh
yuk on the hair seaweed. that made me throw up a little in my mouth.
This killed me! Too funny. I love swimming, would spend every day at the pool, if I could go BY MYSELF. I hate taking my kids. Maybe in a year or two it will be easier, but for now, I dread pool trips. The prep, the schlepping, the near-choking-drowning from having children clinging to my neck, the schlepping again, the clean up when we get home. Sucks the fun right out of one of life’s biggest pleasures.
That is one hilarious summer catchphrase… from a distance. I bet it’s not so funny as the one who lived through it.
Bad times at the pool equal a funny post. Is that any consolation?
Pools freak me out… they just do! We have a pool here at our apartment complex, and I hate going. Lots of people and a tiny body of enclosed water makes me all sorts of crazy!
OMG, OMG, OMG. You had me CRACKING up! The hair seaweed – gah! I hate that. One of the most disgusting things ever. The feel of that nasty warm water walking through the bathroom – a close second to most disgusting things ever. But the best … the diarrhea diaper. “We came. We sh*t. We conquered.” Funniest tag line ever. What IS it with sh*t these days!! A mother’s arch nemesis – also going places where it’s not supposed to!
And P.S. I hate those POS kids who can’t wait their turn too.
And you thank you just reminded me why it’s quite alright that we don’t have any community pools. I needed the silver lining (and NOT the hair seaweed), thank you!
Wearing a swimsuit should be a requirement for admittance in to the swimming area.
Geez. I now never want to take my kids to a community pool. We’ve been using our backyard blow-up pool this summer, and that’s about what I can handle right now. Maybe I’ll feel differently when baby is 2+. But even doing the pool in the backyard feels like too much hassle sometimes. Kudos to you for getting there!
EEEWW! EEEWW! EEEWW! I hate hair seaweed!
I actually shivered when I read about the hair seaweed. Eeewww is so right, Late Mommy! But closing down the kiddie pool? Been there, done that. Oh. Soooooo done that.
Dang – so sorry to hear that you cleared the pool. Total bummer.
I totally get a BELLY PASS since I get to tote around the cute lil baby!
we’ve been listening to the 90′s station on satellite radio at work for the past few days, and IT IS AWESOME.
That’s just awesome. Exactly why we don’t go to the pool. Or the beach. Or anything.
I’ve decided that missing a spot has something to do with bathroom lighting… because I can check and re-check myself and then get out in the full fledged sunlight and BAM! There is hair!
The hair seaweed seriously made me want to throw up… I guess that is why we go to the lake… we just fool ourselves into thinking THAT is supposed to be there.
Since you’ve now had 2 poop in the pool incidents it might be a good time to let you know that the plastic pants help with containment. Our pools require kids to be in a disposable swim diaper with plastic pants over them. Ours are Gerber brand from Target, but they’re the elastic leg, vinyl, pants that usually go over cloth training undies. They can hold in pee so I bet they’ll hold in the poop too.
I wish you better luck with the remainder of your summer trips!
OMG! That sucks! :(
: )
The hair seaweed made gag. The baby pool diarrhea made me laugh. And even better than fully dressed people are those wearing white tee shirts/tank tops and bikini bottoms as a suit. No, son, those are not rocks in her shirt. And yes we are leaving now!
Love these!
ACK! Hair Seaweed! Vomit in my mouth. I seriously think I would faint.
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