Bored? Never!

If you’ve been to Cincinnati in July, you already know that our summers are usually hot, humid and kind of, well, yucky.  That’s why I think the best possible thing you can do during the summer is join a pool.  You can be outside with the kids and get some relief from the oppressive humidity in the water.  Perfect!  We chose the YMCA because, when you join, you can go to any Y in the greater Cincinnati area, including those in Northern Kentucky.  This is perfect for my family because we live downtown (that’s right, a family living downtown), but my parents live in Burlington, KY and my husband’s folks live in Loveland, OH.  I can take Soren, my three year old, to his swimming lessons and leave Kieran, my nine month old, at my parents’ house.  Or, I can take the baby to my husband’s parents and go to the Y that’s closest to them.  If I get to workout by myself, I can go downtown.  My husband can come with us on the weekends and we can put the boys in matching bathing suits.  Yes, I said matching bathing suits.  I’m that mom.  

Okay, before you start to think that I work for the Y (I really don’t), allow me to explain why I’m so hot on the YMCA experience.  It started way back in 1982 (ish), when my family joined the Y for the first time.  I was about six years old and my sister was a baby.  I took swimming lessons and she took a water babies class with my mom.  Then we would all go to the ‘big pool’ outside for the afternoon.  I was terrified of the water in the beginning.  However, the instructors I had at the Y were so amazing that swimming actually became my favorite form of exercise and I even swam on a team briefly.  We went to the Y every summer for quite a few years.  Some of my fondest memories are of days spent at the pool with my mom and little sister.  We never wanted to get out of the water.  We didn’t care if it was cold and cloudy.  We just wanted to swim and swim and swim some more.   We even took our dance classes at the Y and my mom took aerobics.  Remember the Jane Fonda days of hot pink leotards and leg warmers?  My mom had them.  What’s worse, I did, too, complete with silver tights and hot pink Reeboks.  Oh, yes.  We were cool.  

If you’ve already done the math, you’ve figured out that I’m thirty-seven.  I’ve been married for almost five years to the love of my life.  We have two boys and our family is now complete.  Cincinnati is my home town.  I grew up in Sharonville, went to Princeton City Schools and then Ohio University.  I’ve lived in Columbus, Dayton and Indianapolis, but this is home.  I’m now a full-time mom, but in a previous life, I was an IT Business Analyst and consulted for several different companies.  

The decision to stay home with my children was not a difficult one.  I always knew I wanted to do it.  Before my husband and I got engaged, we had the talk about children.  I told him that I really wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and he looked relieved.  It turns out that he thinks it’s just as important as I do.  Thank goodness!  It’s a choice that is working very well for our family.  Now, I’m even entertaining the idea of homeschooling.  Talk about a commitment!  

Other than the Y, we also belong to the Cincinnati Zoo.  It’s about five minutes from our house and is such a fantastic way to spend a morning.  The membership is more than worth it because we go about once a week.  They have a great Children’s Zoo and plenty of beautiful exhibits.  We never get bored there.   Cincinnatians are so very fortunate to have such an amazing resource available to us.  

That’s it.  We decided that two memberships were enough for us.  On the days when we don’t go to the zoo or the Y, we usually head for one of the parks near us.  Washington Park is just minutes away in OTR.  They have a great splash park and a playground designed for very young children.  It’s absolutely gorgeous and I highly recommend checking it out, if you haven’t already.  We also go to Sawyer Point and Friendship Park on the river quite a bit.  They have two really neat playgrounds that are under the Big Mac bridge.  It’s a beautiful park with great views of the river.  We also like to venture out to other parks in the Cincinnati area, just so we don’t get bored.  I never used to think it was a big deal that we have so many fantastic parks.  That was before I had children, when I spent most of my time indoors.   Kids want and need to be outside so we’ve been to almost all of our parks.  That’s because our home has absolutely no usable outside space.  Downtown living is awesome, but has it’s drawbacks.  More on that in my next post.  

Well, those are our summer activities.  If it’s raining or really gross outside, we head for the library, pick out our books for the week and Soren plays on the computers.  With so many great resources available for stay-at-home parents in Cincinnati, it’s hard to get bored.  In fact, it’s hard to make myself stay home and clean the house.  That’s actually something I should be doing now...