Due to summertime pool maintenance, swim team practices and swimming lessons at my regular pools, I’ve had to rely on my 3rd choice backup pool at the YMCA for swimming several days a week. (You can start playing the world’s smallest violin for me now.)
Other than adjusting to a different environment and new swimmers, it’s been fine. I’m fortunate to have convenient backup options. One major difference is that a few minutes before I finish my morning workouts, a stream of 50-100 little kids from daycare arrive. The kids are all around 3 feet tall so I’d guess they are in preschool or early elementary grades.
I haven’t been around this many little kids in a long time. My usual pool mates are my fellow oldsters, a couple of middle-aged professionals and a handful of kids for weekend swim lessons. So it is quite a difference to see 100 munchkins racing in to swim.
They are LOUD.
It’s unbelievable how loud they are.
As far as I can tell, none of these kids speaks in a normal volume. They just yell to each other. And, as far as I can tell, they never shut up.
When I was a lifeguard many years ago, my pools were filled with hundreds of similar kids. But that was a long time ago and those were outdoor pools so the sound didn’t echo and reverberate as much.
At the YMCA, the sounds echo off the walls and tiles to make the cacophony even louder.
I swim with earplugs and still it would give me a headache if I had to spend more than a few minutes there. Fortunately, by the time the kids get into the water, I’m toweled off and on my way out.
The kids aren’t doing anything wrong. They are just being kids. I notice the same communication style (yelling and screaming all the time) from most kids I hear when I’m walking my dogs.
It’s another reason to be grateful I am childfree. It wasn’t intentional, but has turned out to be ideal for me today.