With the beginning of the new school year comes a bittersweet ending to something else: swimsuit season. Swimsuit, we barely knew you this year. At the blink of an eye we went from countless hours online researching that perfect suit for a post-baby shape to now getting ready to tuck the thing into the summer storage box and never pull it out again until next year if it even still fits. Let’s take a moment of silence to pay our respects.
A moment of remembrance for the bright floral prints. For the spandex. For all of the strappy straps (just so. many. straps. this season. I’m imagining a very Devil-Wears-Prada moment in a fashion house somewhere with fancy people standing around a bikini-clad model saying, “this swimsuit needs… something. Something that will add interest yet zero functionality. But it can’t add bulk or actual fabric… eight more straps per bikini, please!” and then they all high five and break for a lunch of celery sticks and hummus.) Strappy swimsuit tops, you added a good two and a half extra minutes to our get-ready time, which may as well have been two and a half hours when added to the typical length of time it takes to get kids ready for the pool.
And can we just take a moment to pat ourselves on the back and reflect on the absurdity of getting little people ready for the pool these days? How about three people who do not know how to swim? All of whom are strapped to some sort of flotation device and need to be slathered from head to toe in sunscreen? And then shimmied into swimsuits and swim diapers and zippered into coverups? Plus towels, goggles, swim toys if you’re a nice mom, flip flops, water bottles… it’s exhausting to think about. I’m sitting here just imagining schlepping my tiny posse to the pool and already I want to pack up and go home.
Still, we did the thing! More than once! We put our big girl panties on and we held our heads high and proudly sported those swimsuits like it was no big deal. We channeled our inner Beyonce and mentally fist-pumped every other mom out there in the pool, looking fierce and rocking her suit like a boss. Because once we were in the water with the kiddos all those body image hang-ups pretty much melted away as we watched our little minnows experience the joys of swimming.
But those days are behind us now and a mom hardly knows how to feel. Swimsuit season has come and gone, and the days of jeans and cardigans and are fast upon us. What, hide this mom bod underneath a comfy sweater? I mean, if we must. Farewell, strappy swimsuit of 2017. If you need us we’ll just be snuggling up in our turtlenecks, crying silent tears into some pumpkin spice lattes.
