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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

122 replies

Oliveoil · 04/05/2008 21:39

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)

OP posts:
BroccoliSpears · 05/05/2008 21:32

I find it's managable because I go every week with three friends and their children. Moral support and someone to chat to.

Pity me - soon I get to experience the whole thing with a baby in a car seat at the side of the pool . Please baby, don't cry and make me drag furious toddler out of the pool early so I can drippingly breastfeed you in the freezing cold changing rooms.

MrsSchadenfreude · 05/05/2008 21:38

Does anyone else's local public pool have really filthy changing rooms? The last time we went to our local there were dirty nappies on the floor and our cubicle had shit smeared over the walls and DD2 managed to get it on her clothes, as we didn't notice until we were locked in the tiny space.

I'll name and shame: Dane's Camp in Northampton. Got that? Avoid like the plague. Full of scum. As in people not frothy pool.

MuffinMclay · 05/05/2008 21:40

I hate it with a passion. I'll only do it if I have someone else to go with (SIL, friend etc.

So much faffing about beforehand, mind-blowing tedium when you are there, and the tantrums and more faffing about afterwards.

Swimming pool too cold
Showers too cold
Toilets smelly and usually blocked
Changing rooms smelly

fizzbuzz · 05/05/2008 21:47

Can't help thinking about all the athletes foot (feet?) and other horrible "moist" disease being spread everywhere.

As an earlier poster said, willies and fannies floating about, ugh. And what if stuff comes out of them?!!

Or what about unwiped bums on changing room seats? I am making myslf ill just thinking about it

MrsSchadenfreude · 05/05/2008 22:02

Fizzbuzz - you have made me laugh so much I am in danger of making this seat moist!

(but my bum is clean)

BarcodeZebra · 05/05/2008 22:13

Highlight of my week is going swimming with DD1. But then our pool is fab: heated to bath temp, tons of slides and bubble beds and wave machines and we always bump into folk we know. It's what I pay my council tax for!

The deal is that DD1 gets to call the shots about what we do and where we go and how long we stay in for. Our record is 3 hours. She's 3.

TBH if the pool wasn't so good I'd probably hate it too.

BarcodeZebra · 05/05/2008 22:15

Fizzbuzz: my technique for dissuading DD1 from drinking the swimming pool water is to tell her that it's Bum Water.

The only problem is that IT IS.

Weegiemum · 06/05/2008 00:01

I like swimming, which is just as well as it is currently the only suitable exercise for dd2 with her hip problems.

DH HATES swimming. Cold, boring, kids splashing etc ....

So now dd1 is over 8, I can take all 3 in myself. He sits in the Cafe, reads the paper or works, I have fun with the kids (he has to take us as I dont drive and it is a 30 min trip on the bus each way) and then helps with the drying process.

Works well for us.

I dont think YABU to hate it, but it is good for them. I hate broccoli but I eat it with my kids!

UnquietDad · 06/05/2008 00:15

Parks are okay. Nothing like the hell of swimming. Everyone is fully clothed for one thing (except in high summer, when it is obligatory for there to be dads stripped to the waist - why are they ALWAYS the shaven-headed and tattooed ones as well?)

The other thing I don't get about pools is the Toe-dangler Mummies. They sit in swimsuits and FULL MAKE-UP around the edge of the toddler pool, dangling their toes in and gossiping. If I'd paid five quid to come in I'd expect a little more than that. Some of the bespectacled ones don't even take their glasses off.

And some people of both genders really really should not be wearing stuff that reveals their lardy stomachs, either. But it's sometimes worth it for the odd bronzed and lissom MILF goddess, and for the catty looks the other women throw in her direction. Always very amusing.

harpomarx · 06/05/2008 00:19

uqd, you forgot to add 'buxom' to the MILF's attributes.

or can you be lissom and buxom?

2sugarsagain · 06/05/2008 00:26

Varacoise veins. If you have them, tis a no-no. Leave it to your 70yr old partner.

They look better in them, somehow ...

cat64 · 06/05/2008 00:28

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

triflenorks · 06/05/2008 09:17

I will take my kids to any pool, but TIDES in DEAL. The pool is that dirty that I once saw peas floating in the water!!

Fillyjonk · 06/05/2008 09:23

my strategy here has been to have kids in such quick sucession that dp has to take the older kids alone, while I sit on the sofa with a yorkie bar

TheMadHouse · 06/05/2008 09:34

I take my two each week. We love the swimming in the water bit, but hate the getting dried at the end

I bribe them with lolly pops so I can get them both dressed and then Put DS2 in a play pen whilst I get dressed.

It is easier now they both stand in the shower, so get a good wash after. also much easier in summer with shorts T-shirts and chrocs (thats for the boys not me)

Only thing is the bloody puddles in the changing room, one slip and I just might as well not bothered getting them dry and dressed

MissGelly · 06/05/2008 10:09

I hate the dreaded Monday evening swimming lessons...inevitably, I miss out on tea when i'm rushing to get them from school to the lesson as I travel a half hour to get them to their lessons. THe thing I hate the most is that they crank the heat way up so its basically a sauna session for all the mums who have to wait... then the dreaded changing and half hour return home. Yak.

triflenorks · 06/05/2008 10:10

Miss gelly take YOURSELF a packed lunch.

themoon66 · 06/05/2008 10:55

I notice a couple of people have named and shamed particularly bad pools.

Well - Gainsborough - municiple pool run by a contract compay. Shit up the walls and toilets overflowing

shandycat · 06/05/2008 11:04

totally agree with you Oliveoil. Nightmare. I now pay someone else to take DS swimming (his favourite thing -- would be, wouldn't it???) which is shameless of me but I don't care. Suggest you do the same. It's blissful release!

Umlellala · 06/05/2008 11:17

I haven't taken dd swimming since I lost my engagement ring in the changing room (i know it's got nothing to do with the swiming pool but it pissed me off). I know that the woman in the next cubicle must have picked it up too cos where else could it have gone? thieving cow.

I should really take dd now that our local one has opened again... but I so can't be arsed.

I really really hate soft play centres - anyone else?

UnquietDad · 06/05/2008 15:25

I see nobody has admitted to being a Toe-dangler yet

sagitta · 06/05/2008 15:41

Hate, hate swimming. DD loves it but is really naughty. Stopped going when 38 wks PG and was crying constantly (me, not DD)
love soft play and parks

MuffinMclay · 06/05/2008 16:50

I think I fall into the toe dangler category (apart from the full make up bit). I always keep my glasses on (blind as a bat without them) and rarely get my hair wet (until the showers).

Heifer · 06/05/2008 17:00

that is why I pay for DD to go to swimming lessons, where I can stay fully clothes and watch sat in a nice comfy chair....

shandycat · 06/05/2008 17:07

I like soft play and love parks (we live in them as soon as the sun shines) -- the killers for me are playing Scalextrix (the cars are always coming off and what IS the point anyway???) and playing with the train set in which I really have to try hard to feign interest. But that's boys! Is it easier with girls?