Poolside

We're on vacation in Palm Springs for a week before we head to San Diego for the second week. We were happy that our room at the resort was 20 feet away from the pool, so it was really right in our backyard. Then we found out it was the family pool. There was another family pool and two other adult pools in the resort and we thought about whether we should head somewhere more quiet, especially because I need to work on my Master's project this first week. Gerry said he'ld rather choose kids over drunken adults, and I agreed albeit reminding him that years ago we too were drunken adults at the pool. He nodded.  No wonder the hot tub was empty at night, they were all putting the kids to bed. Woo-hoo!

Despite the front desk saying they were at full capacity, the resort was very quiet. The first day at our pool had three young families and a couple of seniors. I knew all the kids names just by overhearing the conversations: Cameron, Dylan, Mason....  One 31 year old mom of two kids who was a couple years older than her husband was called a cougar by another dad. Then I would overhear the moms talk of pregnancy stretch marks, breast feeding dilemmas, and then tales of their friends who have bad morning sickness. One had responded "that's soooo sad". I bit my lip and put my headphones on. Another mom, when responding to joining them on vacation next year, said she should be pregnant again by then so they cannot commit yet. I turned up the music some more.  The dads multi-tasked between football updates on their ipads, and picking up a towel a toddler threw in the pool then covering the toddler with the wet towel. Why can't the dads just be at poolside?

Then for the rest of the week, no more kids....just 2-4 senior couples. One couple was skyping with their grandchild. Another had just retired. We were the youth of the club. Despite my happiness for peace and quiet and my ability to relax as much as possible given the qualitative data coding in progress, I then realized we didn't fit in with either group. So, where do the childless couples vacation? Aren't there more of us?