Finally…I’ve only been asking for it for over a year now…and it was my “Mother’s Day” gift last year, but Dan never followed through with it…but we’re officially members at the “Y”!!! Our local YMCA has lots to offer. There’s an indoor gym where they hold various weeknight pickup games of basketball, flag football, volleyball, etc, andthere’s 2 indoor running tracks around the perimeter of the gym. Then there’s the workout room, fully equipped with treadmills, cycles, free weights, and lots of other “fitness-type” equipment. There’s a lap pool, housing 6 lap lanes, and an all purpose area. And Dylan’s favorite, the Family Pool (he calls it the “Pool Park”). We came up with pool park because for some reason, if we said we were going to the pool, he would always pitch a fit, but he loves the park. And the family pool is the perfect combination of the two. It has a zero entry side so the littler ones can walk in andout on their own accord. There are jets that shoot water up out of the ground, and others that shoot several streams of water in a rainbow pattern so the kids can walk under them. There’s a tower that the smaller kids can climb that has jets and showers all over it, and it ends with a water slide for the littler ones. There’s also a lazy river that you just float in…no tubes needed, but that is sure relaxing. Then there’s the “deep end”…meaning, 3’6″ deep. That’s where I’ve been teaching Dylan more “swimming” techniques such as kicking, paddling with his arms, floating on his back, dunking our heads under water, and hanging on the side all by himself. Beyond that is the one area we haven’t ventured into yet, the big water slides. There are two fully enclosed large water slides that stand side-by-side. There’s no way he’s going down those for quite some time. Dan seems as though he’d be a bit self conscious going over there without a “kid” going along, and I’m afraid my large belly would get me stuck in the tube at this point, so I’m not going either! We went and signed up on my birthday, January 2nd, and stayed to play. It was so awesome. It was great exercise that was safe for all of us (namely, me), and we’ve been back several times since then. Each time we go, we have more fun than the time before. I think that’s mainly because Dylan is willing to try a few more things each time we go. The room is kept relatively warm, which seems to be helping his asthma quite a bit. We’ve pretty much been able to use his “breather”, as we call it, once a day, if at all, since we’ve been going. There’s of course a woman’s locker room and a men’s locker room, but we use the family locker room. It has a hallway loaded with lockers for everyone’s “stuff”, and opposite the lockers are “family” changing rooms, which are private rooms that have a changing table, shower, toilet, sink, swim suit spin dryer (wonderful invention), and several chairs. On a typical weeknight, by the time we’re both home from work, we can be in the water by 6:15pm, and out by 7:30pm, and home for a quick dinner by 8:00pm. There’s also a free babysitting service for members. So if needed, we could leave Dylan in the playroom which is fully equipped with blocks, tunnels, slides, etc, and go work out. They’ll watch your little one(s) for up to two hours. I don’t see using that so much now, but it may come in handy after I have baby Luke.
Either way, this has so far been one of my all time favorite Birthday/Mother’s Day/Christmas presents!!! I’m sure we’ll learn even more about what the facility has to offer, as well as what classes they have in time. I know they have classes for all age ranges, but being so close to baby #2′s arrival, I haven’t paid much attention to that at this point. In the meantime, if you have tried to call me, and I didn’t answer, I was probably floating in the pool park with my little monkey on my back!
