No Yellow Polka Dots Here, Not To Mention Any Itsy-Bitsy-Ness

Does anyone besides me find swimsuit shopping to be painful?

I'm pretty sure the last piece of swimwear I got was six years ago, shortly after Adelaide was born, and that was only because our condo complex had a pool, I was determined to get our money's worth from our condo fees, and my mom offered to buy it.

Since then, I've been making do with a hand-me-down one-piece that was my mom's; the only problem is, my mom is four inches taller than me and I'm pretty sure its all in her torso.  The suit is one of halter styles that ties around the back of the neck, and I have to pull it so far up that it looks like my collar bone has boobs.

Swim suit shopping has never exactly been fun, even when I went by myself.  I'd don the swimsuit, look in the mirror of the dressing room, and my brain would go straight into the offensive.


Pretty sure its not supposed to be so tight right here, I'd think.


 Also sure its not supposed to be so baggy right there.

So... horizontal stripes are not my friends.  Nor are violently pink hibiscus flowers plastered across my derriere.  


That's it.  I'm never going swimming again.




So I've put off buying a new swimsuit for several years.  I've been mostly able to avoid pools over the last few years; when you have a six, three, and one year old, pools aren't as much summertime-swimmy-fun as they are yawning death traps.  We're going to a water park this weekend, however, and plan on visiting a pool with friends next week. 


Hence my trip to finally buy a swimsuit a few days ago.  


I ignored Adelaide's attempts to press several brightly colored bikinis on me and tried to pick out whatever suit would neither make me look like a hooker nor a ninety year old woman, which was difficult because Atticus kept positioning bikini tops over his eyes and yelling, "Look at my goggles!"

I made a few hasty choices and shepherded our three angels into the dressing room with me.

Caedmon was confused as to what this small room was and what we were doing there, and so proceeded to spend the next five minutes yelling, "POTTY?  POTTY?  POTTY? POTTY?"

Atticus gave all our fellow changing room inhabitants a play-by-play of what was going on in our particular room:  "MOM!  Why are you taking your shirt off?  Why are you taking your shoes off?  Why are you taking your shorts off?  ARE YOU GOING TO BE NAKED?"  For the record, I kept my undergarments on, both because I didn't want swimsuit cooties and because I didn't want to scar our children.

Adelaide squealed and covered her eyes and giggled and said fun things like, "EW!  This is so gross.  Why do I have to see this?  This is just gross."

I quickly made a selection, got dressed, checked out, and staggered out of the store.


And decided I miss the critical voices in my head.