Chlorine vs. Poop

In my last post, I believe I was considering the relative merits of spending some time at our neighborhood swimming pool instead of the indoor therapy pool at the gym. Warm water vs cold water. Exercise equipment vs sunshine.

Well. I've spent the past three days going to the neighborhood swimming pool at lunchtime and all I can say is, DUH.

I don't like smelling like chlorine all the time, and never having my hair styled, but then, how often do I style my hair anyway? It turns out the cold water feels good on my sore muscles, too. I've alternated walking for 15-minute intervals through the water (frontways, backwards, and sideways -- so I get stared at, I get stared at anyway, with a cane, DUH) with 30-minute intervals of hanging out in the shade, working on my blackberry, and snacking on energy bars and vitamin water in the sunshine. Wagging more.

Today, unfortunately, the operative bout was chlorine vs poop. I had to leave the pool after only one 15-minute walking interval. Someone's child pooped in the pool (they think; might have been barf, and I suppose it could have been an adult) and they had to close it. I could have stayed on the deck, but I couldn't justify sticking around, even with the stack of work I'd brought, when I couldn't get in the water to do my walking. I personally think this happened because of my three days at the pool, I was most organized today. In addition to my BBerry, I brought piles of documents to work on and my iPod to listen to. That'll show me.

AJS is --wait for it -- hilarious. She has started to wave. She waves both hands at once, one at you and one at herself. With her giant, wonderful, barely toothy smile. Somehow, when she's bored, she grinds her three teeth together. This is a horrible sound, but I don't really blame her, as she must find it extremely odd to suddenly have teeth. She had a bad night last night. She couldn't go to sleep until she finally collapsed at 9 pm. Even though a sitter was here, I ended up having to put her down myself -- twice. [I have these beautiful big bruises across the bottom of my rib cage: when I'm trying to put her down in her crib gently, my back muscles can't hold my torso up, so I sort of collapse against the crib railing, and that's where the bruises happen. Hematoma Ed.] She also didn't eat enough, so she woke up at 4:30, starving and babbling and ready to get up and play. Urgh. She wouldn't go back to sleep until 5:15 or so. Then, the next sitter arrived at 7:00 to get the Wednesday party started, and although I think Abby was sleeping flat on her face when we woke her up (her whole little countenance was red and shmooshed), she was as happy to wake up as she always is. I know my husband gets by on just about this much sleep (or less) every single night, but I don't know how he does it. I feel like my head is encased in Jell-O, not unlike Dwight Shrute's stapler.

As it stands now, I have much more to say, but the baby is asleep and it's not even 8:30. I am so tired I can hardly think. I smell like chlorine (better than poop). I am going to go upstairs, rewind the DVD I fell asleep to last night, and watch some more until I (most likely) fall asleep to it again.