Tried to be Super-Mom at the pool, but this happened instead...

Ahhh, the summer time swimming pool. Refreshing, relaxing, peaceful. Hardly!  When I go to the pool I have to round up the littles, find the clean swimsuits,  the towels, hunt down the sunscreeen, which inevitably is close to empty, pack the bag, remember the bottled water, goggles, pool toys, snacks or money for snacks, and then some.  The children and I went to the pool earlier this week, and I was on a roll! I miraculously had all my stuff together. I then opened the freezer to get out some ice for the cooler bag, and saw these. Score! 

I made sure to pack freezer pops for all the kids, packed extra ice packs, got everything together, even remembered the kids, and we headed to the pool. I felt like Super-Mom!  Fast forward to the pool. I surprised the kids with the freezer pops, and they were pretty happy about the frozen artificially flavored goodness. At first. Then the yelps of disgust began, with "Ew!"and "Gross!" So I glanced a bit closer.

I had to laugh at my poor attempt to have it all together at the pool. I told the kids to go jump back in, so I could sit back and have a good laugh at myself. Thank goodness that fun times at the swimming pool aren't contingent upon Mom having it all together.  The kids didn't care about the freezer pops after all, and so the rest of the day looked like this:

I'm sure that one day in the future, one of my children will be sick, and I will wake up in the middle of the night to get some frozen pediatric solution from the freezer, only to remember that it melted at the pool in July. Until then, enjoy these "refreshing, relaxing, peaceful" pool days while they last. I have found that they're much easier to enjoy when you don't expect too much of yourself and laugh off the small stuff.

Wishing you stress-free and fun-filled days, Erin