Water Park

My kids had a friend sleepover last Friday night and I wanted to do something fun with them the next day. It was going to be hot so I decided to take them to the water park. We live a mile from this awesome water park and we get season passes every summer. I purchased the passes a month ago but forgot the waterpark was open so it kind of felt like we were going for free.

I told the girls to get ready and get towels and I went to put on my Spanx bathing suit. I hate my Spanx bathingsuit. I feel like I am trying to squeeze my adult body into a child's swimsuit. I was stretching it and pulling it and squeezing into it. By the time I had it on I was out of breath. I thought, I better not drink anything because I am not going to be able to use the bathroom. The only part of my Spanx bathing suit that I like is that it's a swimdress.

                       
No need to shave your bikini line in a Spanx swim dress. It's the ideal bathing suit for a lazy mom. A lazy mom with stretchmarks, cellulite, and saddlebags. Check, check and check. I loaded the kids into the car and off we went.

We went and got our passes and the kids headed straight for the wave pool. I hate the wave pool. It makes me nervous. My kids are excellent swimmers and there are 8 life guards but I still don't like them to get too far from me. My eight year old is like, "Just going to the 6 foot end to get a tube." I watch her like a hawk. I can't enjoy myself in the wave pool. We moved on to the lazy river that is only 4 feet deep so I could relax. We went around and around. My 6 year old declared she had to use the restroom which made me have to pee too and I was cursing my damn Spanx swimdress the whole time we were walking over to the bathrooms because I knew how hard it would be. After I was done fighting my bathing suit, I went to wash my hands and I looked in the mirror and I thought, "I look hot." I don't ever think that. I turned sideways. Something fishy was going on. Was it the Spanx? No, it was not. The mirrors in the bathroom are distorted to make you look slightly longer (and therefore thinner) like the mirrors in a fun house. These water park people are GENIUSES. I wanted to steal those mirrors. I was very amused.

We went to the tree house and I sat in a lounge chair and people watched. The place was filled with parents and their kids and teenagers. The teenagers were in their little bikinis laying out with their friends and eyeing the life guards. I remember those days. Avalon life guards were the hottest. Then there were the parents. The moms in their skirted tankinis (the quintessential mom summer uniform), the dads with their guts just hanging free with their unkempt mane of chest hair out for the world to see. They are chasing a saggy diapered toddler. You have a few of those over achieving parents who look like Brad and Angelina but the majority are the former description. As I sat there in my swim dress watching all the people and I had this realization that most of us parents have given up on life a little bit. I have a little bit. There is something sad and liberating about not having anyone to impress anymore. I do make an effort to look nice for my husband but there is no mystery anymore. The man has seen me in sweatpants on a regular basis, I'm not fooling him with makeup and a push up bra anymore. My bikini days are long behind me. *Sigh*

It was almost time to go but the kids wanted to go down the water slide. It was huge and I was nervous about it. You have to go down on your stomach on this mat. So I am at the top, laying on this stupid mat on my stomach and I couldn't get enough momentum to propel myself forward. I felt like a beached whale. When I finally did get going, I flew down. The bigger you are, the faster you go. I got a gallon of water up my nose. I had enough water park for the day.

As I walked back to the car, I thought about my next big event for the day - figuring out how I was going to squeeze myself out of my Spanx swim dress.