I joined a swimming class sometime in late January. I was late in the year getting started and late in the second session. Still, I made the choice to do it and went in with my eyes wide open. Well, mostly squinted under children’s goggles and who am I kidding, almost always totally closed inside the leaky, crappy, too-small-for-my-cheap-head-to-buy-an-adult-pair.

I’ve written about my first swim before. It did not go well—physically. Emotionally it was fantastic. I felt great after the work-out despite wanting to vomit en route to the mini-van and while my legs jiggled as I returned the borrowed flippers to the wet stack in the equipment room, I felt alive though that might have been the chlorine I snorted.

I kept at it for a few weeks and noticed it became progressively less life-threatening as I made it through one lesson at a time.

Then I took a three week break.

The break wasn’t by choice.

There was a holiday—1

One of my kids had a medical appointment-2

Then the other day, goggles removed from the homemade stretching apparatus packed in my bag, I heard a barking sound coming towards me from the bedrooms and when I asked who made the noise (hoping it was a seal pup at the end of the hall) Ellie raised her hand and I motioned for her to go back to bed—3

Going back to swimming yesterday after the three week break was so much harder than going that very first day, but why?

For starters I didn’t realize until I was getting into the pool that accidentally washing your bathing suit and drying it in the dryer does in fact change the general shape and perhaps even remove a thin layer causing a semi transparent film to hang well below your knee-caps. Spoiler alert—you will get caught in it if you attempt to swim, you might even have to cut it off of you when it dries.

I only made it to the thirty-four minute mark of a one hour swim, thankful Chloe had a lesson running simultaneously so I could jump out when her lesson finished and act like she needed her Mommy even though I was looking to her for a piggy-back to the change room.

When I tried to walk towards the change room, my legs wouldn’t bend at the knee. Don’t get me wrong, they could bend but I knew it was a slippery slope between bending and having both legs just collapse so I made an executive decision to keep my legs completely straight until I shuffled into the shower. In that moment, I was thankful to have a child who I could ask, “Hey Chloe, do you want to pretend we’re penguins the whole way to the change room?”

I told Chloe to change as quickly as possible and when I knew she wasn’t taking me seriously, I whispered, “Chloe, Mommy feels like she’s going to barf, can you get dressed as fast as you can?”

The next couple of women who came into the room overheard a three year old in the cubby area in her loudest voice saying things like, “Mommy, try not to barf on my shirt.” “Mommy are you going to barf in our bag?” “Mommy if you barf in my shoes you’ll have to carry me to the car and if you’re barfing, I don’t want you to carry me so don’t barf in my shoes okay?”

Chloe did hug me on the way to the car and told me I was the best Nanny in the world.

Hiatus = Humiliation.