Survival of the fittest

It is well documented that I LOVE taking Immie to her Puddleducks swimming lessons. It is possibly my most favourite half an hour of the week. Danielle our lovely teacher has gone off and had a baby (Congratulations Danielle!!!) and now we have a new teacher, Kerry who is just as fabulous as Danielle and Faye before her.

We have moved in to the kickers class, everything is a lot more serious now. We swim round with the babies clinging on to our backs (including swimming underneath the water!) and today Kerry stood one side of the pool I stood in the middle and Kerry flung Immie in the air and we let her flop in to the water (to simulate falling in!!), amazingly Immie didn't cry! PHEW!

However, there is one bit of swimming that I don't like and this is the same whether it is a lesson or you have gone for a fun swim at the local leisure centre and that is GETTING CHANGED!

Getting changed has to be the worst thing EVER. Mainly because at all pools there is a distinct lack of baby changing facilities. Not the fault of the pool owners, it is just the way it is.  But what makes this experience so stressful is changing-hoggers! The parents who lay all their towels, wipes, creams and talc out on a changing station, hogging it and preventing anyone else from using it. So today for example we had 5 children in the pool, with 4 changing stations. 2 parents got out the minute the splashtime starter (bit rude I think!), Immie and I had a bit of a splash and at 10am precisely we got out and were 4th out, so you would think we'd have got a changing station, but oh no, some pushy individual had hogged a station! So poor Immie had to sit on the side, shivering in her towel, even though we weren't the last out. Getting a changing station is definitely survival of the fittest!

There will always be someone last out and waiting, but it annoys me that we weren't last out but still had to wait. If Id have realised we had a changing-hogger in our midst I would have let Immie have a bit more splash time, I wouldn't have been so quick to get out! If I was that way inclined I would have thrown the woman's towels etc on the floor but I did the incredibly British thing of getting Christopher to try and change Immie on the floor!

Then another parent left all her stuff on a changing station even though her son was changed and happily in the play pen! At this point I shouted across to Christopher "Oh just chuck it on the floor!" she then realised her error, tried to blame her husband and sheepishly moved the offending items.

So mummies and daddies next time you are at the pool, don't be a changing-hogger and once you have dried and changed your little darling, MOVE YOUR CRAP OUT OF MY WAY!

Mama x