Swimming

I can't remember learning to swim, though I do remember swimming lessons, specifically taking the life-saving course at Pymble pool in the summer holidays while my younger siblings were learning to swim and going to the school swimming scheme in primary school. I know diving clicked for me when I was 9 and we were in Tahiti on our way to the US where my dad was going for a 4 month sabbatical. There is also the family story of sibling rivalry wherein I was going without floaties for the first time at 3 years old and my sister, 21 months younger than me, decided that meant she could too and plunged straight to the bottom of the ocean pool.

I have so many cherished childhood memories of swimming. Out beyond the breakers with my uncle and cousin, body surfing and ending up with a cossie full of sand on numerous beach camping holidays. Floating on airbeds in the Kangaroo River, again with our cousin. Canoeing and swimming in Smiths Lake and swimming out to help my sister and cousin who were having steering issues with their canoe. My sister and I swimming out to the pontoon in the middle of the bay at the resort in Crete and FREAKING our parents out because it was so far off shore, I was 14 (Dad swam out to "rescue" us, we beat him back to shore by a long shot and then he got disoriented on the way back and ended up off to billy-o around the shore-line). At 15 years old, going to the YMCA in Boulder Colorado on a Friday night for a family outing at the pool, in winter, and stopping off at Baskin and Robbins on the way home. Getting up at 6am to go with my Mum to the local pool to swim 1km before breakfast on school days during my HSC year.

By the time that last one was happening I had well and truly reached the point where I felt uncomfortable in a swimming costume in public. It was an effort to go to a public pool and take my clothes off, the less time there was between removing my shirt and getting in the water the better. I was about half the weight I am now.

When I had kids I made a conscious decision that my issues with my body would not stand in the way of them having the fun of beaches and swimming pools and all the things that I loved so much when I was a kid. I made that decision long before I'd even heard of Fat Acceptance and it was hard to follow through on. For a long time I had to have at least a day's notice before a trip to the local swimming pool, I needed to psych myself up to it and wake in the morning knowing that we were going. Going on beach camping holidays was an exercise in being tense and hyper self-conscious for a whole weekend, or a whole week. Even being in my in-law's backyard pool was challenging, not that any of my in-laws have ever said a single word to me about my weight, but still.

Me, David and Caitlin in Adam's parent's pool

But I did it and I'm glad I did. For one thing I have photos like these and the memories to go with them.

Caitlin



David



Me



Me, Caitlin and Tom

I had conversations with small children at beaches who informed me, as small children will, "You're fat!" and I found that I could respond with humour and be ok.

Me, David and Caitlin (and my mum's arm)

I got to be the one teaching my kids how to watch the breaking waves and decide to either jump over or dive under. (With help from Grandma!)

Me, my Mum, David, Caitlin and Thomas

David boogie boarding

Last summer I tended to be the one behind the camera, but I was still there, at the beach and the pool, in my swimming costume and in the water.

Adam and Caitlin

Adam and the kids.

This summer I plan to make sure I'm in the photos again.

50 Things post No. 2

Two more sleeps...

...till the kids are back at school.

I'm not sure I'm ready for everything to start up again, I've been filling in the calendar with all the after school activities and realising that there's a reason I end up slightly frazzled during term time. Caitlin has signed up for 3 dance classes and will be continuing with her singing lessons, Tom is planning on doing karate twice a week, continuing his drama classes and taking up flute lessons in order to play in the school band, David will hopefully continue with sword classes, Adam is doing a pottery course this term, might be taking his mum to French lessons and will do sword with David. Adam's mum will join us for dinner once a week and my Dad will be coming for a meal twice a week.

I will be huddled over here in the corner gibbering slightly.

It's possible I may end up culling some of those activities, we'll see how things go.

We did end up going to the beach, but it was Monday rather than Sunday. We took Adam's mum with us and met up with Adam's brother and family at Terrigal on the Central Coast north of Sydney - about an hours drive from our place.

We set up camp under one of the big pine trees that line the concourse behind the beach, forays to the water were made, fish and chips lunch was consumed, books were read, conversations were had and seagulls were foiled by the hiding of food inside the picnic basket. They were so disappointed, I could practically hear them thinking "But you aren't eating it, why can't we have some?"

Terrigal Beach

Adam and Caitlin on the waters edge

The surf was flat as a pancake but Tom still managed to catch a wave, this was taken after it left him beached on the sand.

Bodysurfing optimism

Shortly after Caitlin first headed off to swim she came running back up the beach to me full of excitement. She'd been swimming along and saw four fairly decent sized fish in the water with her, on the basis of her description Adam reckons they might have been bream, she saw a whole bunch more during the course of the afternoon too. If only there weren't so many people in the water it might have been worth throwing a line in. Not that we had any fishing gear with us. Tom wanted to see the fish too and spent quite some time with goggles borrowed from Caitlin (he'd forgotten to bring his), head submerged in the water but sadly he searched in vain, didn't see a single fin. It was with some no small effort that he conceded that the beach was still fun even without fish-sightings.

Tom wrestling with disappointment

On a more domestic note, I will be starting the school term with a tidy pantry and Tupperware cupboard. I've taken photos to preserve the state of order for posterity because I know perfectly well that here in the world of entropy and kids unpacking groceries and dishwashers the degree of organisation will last approximately half a day. And there's no way I'm dispensing with child labour in favour of tidy cupboards :P

This cupboard is the bane of my existence, when the dishwasher is open you can't open the doors to the left hand side and so things that belong in there get piled up on the bench above and no one seems to know where anything goes so the things that belong in the right hand side get added to the piles on the bench as well. And then along comes someone in a hurry who wants to start cooking and the random piles get picked up and shoved in anywhere they'll fit.

Maybe if I stuck this picture on the inside of the pantry door people would know where to put stuff back after they've finished with it...

An afternoon at the beach

This afternoon, just after lunch, Adam decided to bake bread rolls. I do like that he's impulsive sometimes but it would be nice if he didn't so frequently decide that he can do something in x minutes when in actual fact it is going to take x minutes + 1 hour. Anyway, Tom had a great time helping to make the rolls so it was totally worth it!

The bread rolls came with us to the beach, filling the car with the scent of freshly baked bread for the 40 minute drive. I completely failed to take a photo of them because we were in a hurry to get going once they were cooked and by the time we were sitting around the picnic table with dinner laid out before us everyone was way too hungry to allow for such frivolities as blog photography.

We took both Adam's and my mum along with us and, when we arrived at Avalon beach, were able to plonk ourselves down in the shade of one of the huge pine trees that overlook the sand.

Avalon Beach

Sunscreen was applied and Tom, Caitlin and Grandma made a bee-line for the water. David had decided that being sandy and salty was over-rated and settled down to sit with Nan.

David has engaged his anti-camera device.

Adam and I wandered down to the water's edge and stood knee deep in the waves watching the kids in the water with my mum. We ended up staying there, talking about stuff, with only the occasional larger wave interrupting us, for most of an hour. It was probably the best conversation time we've had in weeks. Eventually we thought we'd better go back and be friendly to Nan and Dave. A little later Adam and Tom headed over to the ocean pool and Dave and I followed.

The ocean pool is down where the sand meets the rocks at the base of the headland.

Ha! Got him before he could engage anti-camera device!

I was planning on just walking in far enough to get the sand out of the legs of my boardies but ended up going in for a swim after all, the water was just too enticing. We swam over to the edge where the waves of the incoming tide were just beginning to slosh over the concrete wall and rested there watching the surf break on the rocks. I'd have taken some photos but my camera was in David's pocket and he'd got fed up with watching us in the pool and had buggered off back to our spot on the beach.

After all that swimming and walking over soft sand and floating in the pool Tom was exhausted.

Grandma, David and Caitlin, however, were still going strong.

Adam and his mum went off in search of dinner while the rest of us lounged about on the beach, Grandma and Tom did go back for one last surf before the food arrived. Fish and chips and prawns and, of course, the rolls. At the end of the meal, after having devoured a huge amount of food including 4 of the, admittedly small, bread rolls, Tom asked "Seeing as we've been so good, can we have ice-cream?"

So we did.