Today I packed the wrong swim shorts for Ethan-11yr. I had no idea he’d grown that much since last year. My first clue was when 2 boys emerged from the gym bathroom and Caden-7yr told me that those shorts were so tight Ethan-11yr could not get them on or off and he was having a bit of a crisis.

Except, in Caden-7yr terms.

Caden-7yr is pretty laid back about most things, so there wasn’t really any urgency at all in his delivery of this particular message.  I told Caden-7yr what Plan B would be, and sent him back to the boys’ restroom to communicate it to Ethan-11yr. Before he could get there, though, Ethan-11yr came out of the restroom, having successfully squeezed into a tiny pair of  yellow, floral swim shorts.

He looked proud. And uncomfortable. The waistband cut into his flesh leaving red marks, but he didn’t care.  He was going to swim in that disgusting pee-water indoor kid pool, and nothing was going to stop him. I admire this. Mostly. The ratio of water to urine cannot be ignored though, and it just icks me out.

One little girl stood in the very shallow water and discovered how fantastically dramatic it was to quickly flip her head toward the water’s surface and let her long pretty hair slap the water, and then stand up, flip her head back, and let water fly off her hair in a huge arc as her hair made its whiplash-like return. She was probably 6, adorable, and having a great time.

Seth-5yr stood with his mouth hanging open at this bizarre display of female activity. He took off his goggles to get a better view. She repeated this many times, until her neck probably hurt. Seth-5yr looked back at me a couple of times as if to say, “What is this? Explain it to me. No, nevermind, let me just enjoy this rare sighting.”

Later, I asked him about what he thought about the girl who was making her hair do tricks and he quickly said, “What? I did not see her. I did not see that girl with the long hair and the blue buh-kay-nay. Don’t ask me – I did not see any of that.”

Um. Right, Seth-5yr. I didn’t mention the blue bikini, yaknow.

As we left, Caden-7yr  lamented sadly that he has blond hair. This was depressing to him, as he’d somehow gotten the notion that only girls are supposed to be blond, and this clearly made him less than attractive, and a bit defective. He seemed to be sharing with all of us how this is a hardship he must live with, and he’s coping okay.

In order to refute this belief system, we named every single blond male person we knew, and I mentioned how the word is spelled ‘blonde’ when describing a female’s hair, and without the ‘e’ when describing a male’s hair. And clearly, it’s all God approved and written into the English language and on. And on. And on.  Because I can dork out and bring God and grammar rules into any argument, if necessary.

And then he changed the subject and said, “I know that place like the back of my hand.” And Ethan-11yr slapped his hand over the top of Caden-7yr’s hand and asked him to describe his own hand in order to back up this claim.  (I still don’t know which place he was claiming to know so well. It hardly mattered.)

Caden-7yr said, “Okay: Freckle. Hair. Skin. Fingers.”

Ethan-11yr pulled his hand back and they checked and jointly found this description to be inaccurate. I only know, because Caden-7yr laughed and said, “Yeah, I just made that up. FINE. I know that place like the back of Mom’s favorite gyms.”

And his brother didn’t quiz him on the accuracy of this, because that seemed far more likely to be true I guess, and that was the end of it.

You’re not supposed to really enjoy all the endless driving you do as a mom. But I really, really do.

With conversations like this in the backseat, it’s no wonder. They’re just so strange and entertaining.

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