sunburn sucks

Lily and I spent most of the day at Pirate’s Cove—the low cost alternative to WaterWorld—with Amy today. T and I weren’t able to get Lily into swimming lessons this summer because our travel plans managed to conflict with every single session of swimming lessons scheduled at the local pool. Luckily, Lily did take swimming lessons last summer and has gotten a few chances since then to practice her doggy paddle (which, apparently, is called “scooping ice cream” now). Today at Pirate’s Cove, she was able to swim about 6 feet by herself and she was so excited by her newfound abilities—you know that awful high pitched squeal little girls can do? Well, there was a lot of that today.

Lily and I both got pretty bad sunburns today. Lily’s only had two sunburns before this and both were on small patches of skin. Today’s sunburn is everywhere—her arms, legs, back. None on her face, amazingly. I hate when she gets sunburn and feel like the worst mother in the world. I’ve read about a million times that statistic about how one bad childhood sunburn may be all it takes to cause skin cancer years later. I am vigilant about applying sunscreen to her. But she was in the water, moving around, so much today that my vigilance wasn’t enough.

I am holding Neutrogena responsible for my sunburn, which is bad and everywhere. I usually use their Dry-Touch Sunblock with SPF 45 and reapply every two hours and get very very very light pink sunburn. So I decided to try their SPF 70 today for the first time, thinking that if I reapply every two hours I should get no sunburn at all or sunburn that’s not as bad as what I usually get. Well, I put the sunscreen on and it immediately balled up into gross little white beads that stuck all over my swimsuit and cover up. I knew that wasn’t a good sign, so I wasn’t too surprised to get the worst sunburn I’ve had since I went snorkeling in Mexico off Isla Mujeres in 1998 and forgot to reapply at all after putting on sunscreen in the morning. (That wasn’t the dumbest thing I did while snorkeling on that trip. The day before, I went snorkeling without removing my fanny pack, which had my passport and money in it. T loves to reminisce about that.)

I am one of those sunscreen fanatics that does use a full ounce of the stuff each time I apply. One thing I do not skimp on is sun protection. When you’re as pale and freckled as I am, you live in fear of the sun, which is why I pretty much go to Pirate’s Cover or WaterWorld only once each summer and spend the rest of the summer under a big floppy hat with my sunscreen nearby.

tags: health  lily  me  stupidity  whatever  

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