Swimming With 3 Littles

When we went house hunting last weekend, we stayed at a hotel with a pool. We knew Mason wanted to go swimming (we live a block from the city pool, so he asks to go often), but we weren't sure we could handle all three kids in the pool at once. After all, they can't swim!
Tyler suggested that just him and Mason go swimming and I could do something else with Elliot and Finnley. I thought that would certainly be the easiest option, but we agreed it would be nice for the girls to get to enjoy a new experience. We did all kinds of new things with Mason, I'd hate for the girls to miss out on certain things just because it was more difficult for us.
With little thought and planning (and purchasing) we figured out a way for everyone to enjoy the pool.

• We bought a floaty ring. That solved the whole being outnumbered aspect. One kid in the floaty, one in each of our arms. The kids rotated, so everyone got a turn to ride in the lady bug.
• We bought a life jacket type thing to put on Mason. I'm not really big on the idea of giving him a false sense of security, but when you are outnumbered, safety wins. Two year olds have minds of their own, for all we knew he could have been running around the pool area, slip and fall in. Luckily, there was no running, and he never wanted to float by himself, so it really was just precautionary.

• We came to the pool prepared. 5 towels, my camera, and our floaty... It was important to remember everything on the first trip, once those kids are in the pool, it isn't any fun to haul them back out before they are ready to leave.
• I also got our room ready for when we got back. I knew when we returned to our room, it would be time to get ready for bed. So, I laid out a couple towels to change the gals and set out three sets of jammies.

It is really crazy how much more work adding two extra kids to your family can be. Must be the whole being outnumbered factor. We struggle a lot still, it often seems like there is at least one child unhappy, but we try our best. Being prepared for things like this really helps and reduces stress and anxiety.

When we left the pool, I had Mason walk back to the room with his legs still in the ladybug floaty and held on to the sun shade part. He was trying to run to the edge of the pool, but I just yanked on his leash sunshade, so no incident there!

Now that we've conquered swimming with three, we are eager to do it again, and Tyler came home with two more floaties the other day. Perhaps we will just stick them all in their own floaty and take a nap in the beach chairs. Kidding.. probably.