People watching at the swimming hole

We’ve been to lots of swimming holes lately. A pond in a nearby town, the local swimming pool, the beach. I’m often in the water with Monkey, but sometimes she finds friends or ends up jumping off the dock a million times and I have a chance to people watch. People watching is one of my favorite past times. And the pool, pond or beach? The best people watching.

A few observations:

• Non-Americans wear much smaller swimsuits than Americans do. It has nothing to do with their age or size. It’s a cultural difference. They have a different idea of what is normal. Men wearing tight little swim trunks. Sometimes their huge bellies are much bigger than the swimsuits that they hang over.
• Every little kid looks even cuter in a swimsuit. I mean, I always think little kids are cute, but in a swimsuit they are even more adorable. Something about those chubby thighs and their joy in the water and the sand just melts my heart.
• Even in the year 2010, with all we know about skin damage and skin cancer caused by the sun’s harmful rays, there are still a lot of people who want a suntan. I concede that it’s possible that some of the people laying in the sun may be slathered with sunscreen, just enjoying the warmth. But the people who are carefully rotating a quarter turn every 15 minutes and checking their tan lines — those people have no sun-fear. These folks are saying, “bring on the baby oil.”
• Swim tag has millions of variations. And there are at least four million other water games. And kids of almost any age can build sand castles for hours. Hours!
• Teenagers are a lot more physically affectionate in public than they were when I was a teenager. It has nothing to do with age changing my perspective. Nothing at all! To be honest, these young couples lying close to each other on the sand, or kissing in the water, seem sweet and adorable to me. But I’m still surprised by how comfortable they are caressing in public. It’s a whole new world out there.

I’m a bit panicked. What on earth am I going to do when Pumpkin and Monkey get to be that age?

Image:  Vintage Picture of a Blond Girl Child (Jerusalem, early 1900s) uploaded by Beverly & Pack via flickr under a Creative Commons license.