Babies Are Embarrassing

Your child WILL embarrass you.

The week that Sophia had her first plane ride, she had another first as well. Hot springs.

We were taking a family vacation in Radium, BC. We go a few times a year to visit Justin’s parents, and stopping at the hot springs is always a must for us. This was our first trip to Radium with Sophia, and we wanted to bring her into the pools with us. At home, she loves taking a bath. She can be fussy as hell, but as soon as I plop her into some warm water she’s got a smile on her face. I figured that since she loves bathing so much at home, she would probably like the hot springs too. The water is pretty close to what a warm bath would be like, and both Justin and I would be there to make sure she was having fun.

I did lot’s of Google-ing beforehand to make sure it was okay to take a baby into the hot springs. Most things I read said it was totally fine, as long as she was being closely supervised. Some places don’t allow infants in their pools due to the risk of an accident (as in a poop accident), but luckily the hot springs we were going to wasn’t one of those places.

I also did a lot of research on which diapers would be the best to use. Most swim diapers are not absorbent and are built to catch solid waste only. This is so the diaper doesn’t soak up a bunch of pool water and end up weighing 5 lbs. Sophia is EBF (exclusively breastfed), which means her poo’s are pretty runny. So as you can see, there was an issue. I was worried that if she did drop a deuce, it would end up moving through the diaper and create a very obvious poo cloud around her. To be safe, I bought a pack of disposable swim diapers (even though they were huge on her), and put one of those underneath a cloth swim diaper. No way in hell was any poo going to get through that set up. She never did end up pooping, but I’m sure if she had it would have been totally fine.

So, we get to the hot pools and Sophia is looking cute as a button in her little swim suit. We walk to the farthest end of the pool because it’s a little bit cooler than the rest, and we don’t want Sophia to get too warm. We slowly bring her in, and just like I suspected, she is content.

For like, 2 minutes.

It didn’t take long at all for Sophia to start crying. Both Justin and I tried our best to calm her down – Justin took her out of the water pretty quick and we walked closer to the waterfalls so nobody would hear her cries. I tried to comfort her, but she was not having any of that. We lasted maybe ten minutes before we decided to call it quits. Because we had walked to the farthest side of the pool, that meant we had what seemed like an endless walk of shame. Strangers stared at us – some smirked, some scoffed. I could practically hear everybody thinking “Why would you bring a baby to the hot springs?” I honestly felt like Cersei in that one Game of Thrones episode where she’s walking down the street as the nun chants “Shame! Shame! Shame!”

We did eventually make it to the changing rooms, where I was met with more scathing looks and a few eye rolls. I was literally sweating as I tried to jiggle Sophia on my hip with one hand and unlock my locker with the other. Once I got her bathing suit and diapers off, she started smiling and giggling like her normal happy self. It was like nothing had happened!

We made it back to the car and vowed to never return to the hot springs ever again. My fiancé claims he is permanently scared from the embarrassment of that horrible walk of shame. Usually, I can come out of these situations with some profound lesson about life, but honestly, all I learned from THAT experience was that my kid likes being naked.

So, my advice for you Mamas out there is this: be prepared to be embarrassed. Kids have absolutely no sense of shame, so that often means we get to feel it for them. Whether your kid is picking their nose and eating it in the grocery store, asking you why that lady over there is so funny looking, or screaming her head off in a public pool; they are going to embarrass you many times throughout the course of their lives. Just try to remember, they love you and you love them! And they’re probably not trying to embarrass you on purpose. Hopefully.

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