Three Ring Circus

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When I was younger my Dad would leave for work at the crack of dawn and arrive home way after I was asleep. My Mother was home with all three of us, all the time. My brothers and I, were 'perfect little children' so I really was perplexed every time we were out in public why my Mother always looked frazzled.

When we would get in the car she would let us have it, and somewhere in those conversations she would always say

"Why do we have to be a three ring circus everywhere we go?"

I used to wonder in my child mind "What is this three ring circus this crazy woman is talking about?"

Someone upstairs is laughing and I finally get it. Now I am the frazzled crazy woman.

We went to the YMCA Sunday. We go there every day. That is my break. My sanctuary. I love to exercise (I am working on those blog posts too, but their is only so much time in the day and only so many posts I can type, and the gym keeps winning).  Sunday, we told the kids we would go play in the pool there. We don't do this often, it requires traveling to the gym with a ton of bags, changing everyone in the locker room etc. It is just easier to swim at home.

Rock and I had an awesome workout, we successfully changed everyone in the locker room,  and we had an awesome time in the pool, and just after I had thought "we should really make more of an effort to take the kids to the pool here", the three ring circus showed up.

I was packing up to leave and go back to the locker room to change when Tadpole decided to come running full force out of the pool. He slipped, slid across the cement, and smacked his head, at the same time Rock was telling him "slow down, no running!!!" Tadpole immediately started screaming and his head was bleeding. Now all eyes are on us.  I picked him up dried him off and assessed his injuries. "Rock go ask the lifeguard for ice please."

After 10 minutes and no ice, we decided instead of going back through the locker room and through the lobby, Rock would go get the car, pull it up to the pool, and we would exit that way. He left to get the car. I dried off Tadpole, and changed him while he was in my lap, not the easiest task with a 40 pound 3 year old with a head injury. Tadpole was whining about being cold, so his towel and mine are covering him.

While I started to change Bean underneath his towel, the lifeguard finally arrived with the ice.
I wrapped the towel around Bean, tried to cover myself up, but Tadpole wasn't sharing any of the towels.


When the lifeguard was close enough he said "I'm so sorry it took so long, we could not find the guy with the key for the ice machine." I must have looked perplexed but I simply said "No worries, thank you so much."

Since when were ice machines locked? Do people steal ice? Is the Y afraid of their ice being poisoned? Is this some sort of health code I am not aware of?

I applied the ice to Tadpoles head, and the lifeguard stool there while I sat comforted my child and felt extremely uncomfortable sitting in my bikini, which was all disheveled from taking care of a screaming 3 year old. This lifeguard, who could not have been more than 16 started to explain what to look for with a head injury. I know I should have let him finish, smiled and said thank you, but I just wanted him to go, and I just wanted out of that place so I kindly interjected, "No worries, I graduated nursing school." Now that probably sounds snooty but it is illegal for me to say I am a nurse, because I have not taken my boards yet.  He looked at me and said
"We are here to help."

Now I felt like an ass.  He did walk away though and I was thankful because I wanted out of there. Bean and Tadpole were getting squirmy and just as I thought we were all clear to go...

Another lifeguard walked up with an incident report to fill out. I had to stand up in my disheveled bikini  fill out the form with one kid hurt, hungry, and tired and the other cold, squirmy, and hungry and both asked me a million questions and whined at me while I filled out the form. I filled it out as fast as I could and handed it to the lifeguard. Now I thought, we could finally leave. Just as  the lifeguard turned to walk away...

 Bean dropped his towel and flashed everyone!

The lifeguards face said it all, but he was smart enough to walk away and not comment. Then the frazzled crazy woman in me emerged.

"Bean you can't just drop your towel and be naked in front of people."

"It was an accident, my towel slipped."

Now I felt like a bigger ass, because I know he is right; but why must we always draw so much attention to ourselves as if we each hand picked our own circus act, only the audience never applauds when the performance is over?



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