to HATE taking my children swimming with a PASSION, hatred of a degree that makes me a madwoman?

[Oliveoil]

get up early
breakfast
out
in the changing room
cold
OTHER PEOPLE
in pool
cold
OTHER PEOPLE
drag the time out until I can stand NO MORE
out
cold
OTHER PEOPLE
home
baths x 2
wasted morning

repeat every week

that will be £10 please (parking, admission, choc from machine after)

I take three mindees under 26 months every week, (with a mum with one of her own as it is ratio 2-1 here)

Its a faff getting them changed but have it down pat now, especially the getting changed after, (strip child sit them in a rubber ring on the floor put towlling poncho over them, and giv ethem a biscuit) dress yourself, kids are warm and eating so dont mind waiting and if you are dry you dont shiver so dont take so long to get kids changed.

Take them home and they all sleep till lunch time

We go on a Friday and most of the mindees go early on a Friday so its a really lovley easy day for me.

Yuk, Yuk, Yuk!!!

For some reason I can't quite fathom we seem to have got into a routine whereby DH takes DS to his football lesson on a sunday morning and by some strange default I take DD swimming (DS has lessons at school - y-a-a-a-y!)

Every week without fail we bump into someone we know and I actually have to look at forty-something dads of children in my DCs class WITH VERY FEW CLOTHES ON. URGHH!

Ah yes. That happens to me too. And once it was one of the very few crush-worthy dads too .

Message withdrawn

I haven't done this for ages it is one good thing about being ill

it is hard bloody work

also to use the disabled entrance at the hotel gym (cannot use public pool - too cold for child with spasticity) you have to walk all the way through the restaurant, past the adventure playground and through the back of the building

it takes at least twice as long to get out as it does to swim

I hate it too,
luckily they are both old enough for lessons now, so i only have to go occasionally to the 'fancy pool with slides' in the next town with them for a treat, and they have a cafe there so i can reward myself wih a big slice of cake afterwards to get over the trauma!

I don't mind going.
I take ds to David LLoyd pool,tis much nicer than local rec.
I am a pool snob.

try here

but they don't let the kids in here

i'll go away now...

gawd, i despise it too with a passion. the local pool is really old and crunbly, freezing changing rooms, rather suspect grime round the sides of the pool. freezing changing rooms, having to have a shower when i get home. have i mentioned the freezing changing rooms?

i like swimming on my own when i can pound up and down a pool getting rid of any stress, can't do that with DS, he just likes to lark around. am trying to teach him to swim but is a bit hit or miss.

am off to majorca next month with prvate pool for small block of flats, will be a much nicer expreience [grin}

I really despise it too - even though we live in germany where the pools are lovely and very clean. I just hate the whoel thing, but have to go, as we have 3 so DH can't do it by himself, but I count the minutes, I really do.

Has anyone mentioned the used plasters and other people's hairs in those grubby damp gutters in the changing rooms, yet?

I don't go.

I'm so glad it's not just me. I also live in Germany where taking your kids to the open air pools in the summer is a national past time. Both my sils do it and seem to genuinely enjoy it. I don't. Can't bear the mess and the muddle, it's just all thoroughly miserable, damp and cold.

It's a dh chore and he ropes in his dad to help.

no no sounds about right. I can't bear to do it so dd only does swimming if it is at the weekends when dh can take her.

We were on holiday a couple of weeks ago and just came out of the swimming pool showers and a mum walked in to them with her 2 boys. The older one said "Mum I want a wee" and she said - quietly, but we could hear- "Well just do it here" in the shower area - and he did! Then the little one did the same and she said really loudly "oh you are disgusting!" obviously thinking none of us heard her tell the older one to do it I know wee is sterile, but ughh

My DH takes ours. Every Sunday. Bliss- peace and quiet.

He makes the whole changing room thing easier by having a packed lunch in the bag for after the swim. DH gets dressed, DS1 quiet and content, then DS1 willingly gets into clothes too cos v sleepy and full.... off they go, DS1 falls asleep in car, sleeps more once home, = about 4hrs for me without a screaming 3yr old to deal with!!!!

Me? I LOVE swimming pools, for that very reason

I swam with them every week until they were 5, and now I pay for them to have lessons. Dd had lessons from when she was 6 until the age of 11. DS has had lessons from when he was 4 (he is 9) 1:1 at £14.00 a week, I have spent £3500 he can now swim 25 metres as of last wednesday, which is so wonderful.

I do not like swimming and so I don;t really go now. Dh did it alone for a few years and now either he goes or the dds are old enough to go alone.

The wet, the heat, the bacteria, the red face, the tangled hair, the cold - hate it all.

I used to hate it when I had to take them into the pool myself, but now DS has lessons, and I use the 30 mins to swim myself, which I really enjoy. Dont mind being a bit damp etc when weather is OK. We cycle home, which dries hair and other bits off. I do find crocs are great, as I dont have to do socks, or bother drying my feet.

oh I am pleased that most of you seem to agree (apart from the odd bods who like it, weirdos)

Message withdrawn

No, I hate it. Won't take them. It's punishment and I don't understand why people would take children swimming if they could at all help it.

also don't like parks - miserable cold places full of children and miserable cold grown ups.

bleugh.

oh I love parks

they have ice cream vans and therefore MAGNUMS