It’s been a long, hot summer — the longest, hottest summer I can remember. Thankfully, it is coming to an end. One of the few memories I have of this summer is reading a relentless stream of Facebook status updates telling me how much fun my friends are having. Am I the only one who isn’t having an amazing summer, or am I the only one who isn’t lying?

I’ve been very busy the past three months reading about and viewing photos of everyone’s summer of fun at the beach and the pool with their kids. There are pictures of the kids making sandcastles, jumping over waves, and eating ice cream sandwiches on the beach. There are pictures of the kids splashing in the pool, diving into the pool, and eating ice cream sandwiches next to the pool. Their mothers are lounging happily next to them with tans perfected from lazy hours spent baking in the sun. The pictures tell the same story: everyone is having the best summer ever.

But I don’t buy it. A picture is worth a thousand words, with a few hundred lies throw in. Have you ever brought a toddler to the beach? Or to the pool? It is the opposite of fun.

This is how a trip to the beach plays out for me. I apply sunblock on myself, which takes about 30 minutes, and then on my child, which can take another 30 minutes. Can’t miss a spot or those harmful UV rays will turn our skin a painful shade of reddish-purple. I wrangle my child into a swim diaper, and a special sunblock-reinforced swimsuit. Then I pack everything I can carry on one arm so I can carry him on the other arm, five blocks to the beach. I’m probably carrying 60 pounds. Did I mention it was a hot summer? The sunblock that has taken 60 minutes to apply is now dripping off my body, along with a stream of sweat.

Once we establish a beach head, we sit in relative silence for about thirteen seconds until the fun begins. My child rubs sand in his face, eyes and mouth. I keep applying sunblock, which just exacerbates the sand problem. I try to give him an ice cream sandwich, but he throws it in the sand. He runs out to the waves, so fast that I can’t keep up, and almost drowns. Then he starts running down the beach, kicking sand into people’s faces and jumping on their beach blankets. He’s having a great time, which of course I am happy about. But me? Not so much. After 30 minutes, I’ve had enough. I pick my son up kicking and screaming, carry the 60 pounds five blocks back to the beach house, and dunk the both of us in a tub of water.

I’m certainly not capturing that moment on film, let alone posting it on Facebook.

Although the pool eliminates the sand issues, I can’t say it’s much easier.  At the pool, I’m usually obsessing about us getting sunburned from any spots missed by the SPF 50. My son is hovering around the edge of the pool, daring to fall in. Of course I never signed him up for baby swim survival lessons, so he doesn’t know how to do the special baby float. He’s slipping and sliding all around the pool area, and his head is coming dangerously close to the pool’s cement edge. I’m also trying not to get impaled with a football that some dad and his teenage son think is a good idea to throw near the baby pool. To make matters worse, I’ve heard too many horror stories about “floaters” in the kiddie pool, so I’m keeping one eye on my child and one eye scanning the surface of the water. How about this for a Facebook status update — “Great time! We just evacuated the pool due to a floater and now the lifeguards are dousing it with toxic amounts of chlorine!”

Am I the only one missing the summertime fun here?

In addition to reading about everyone’s best summer ever, I’ve also spent these months following a group of women training for a triathlon. Nothing says summer like a bunch of tan, buff females giving us a gun show (and I’m not talking about firearms). I’ve viewed countless pictures of women looking fit and toned while running, biking, and swimming. Their skin is glowing from the endorphins. Or from the river sludge that they just swam in, I’m not sure.

Yes, it’s my own fault that I’m lazy and out of shape. Although I spent some of the summer with a heating pad on my ass nursing a back injury, I really have no excuse. I have the time to get in shape, but I just don’t have the motivation. I admire the triathlon disciples on some level, but as time goes by, I am getting increasingly annoyed by the self-congratulatory updates. I understand that training for a triathlon is all about setting goals, pushing your body to the limit, and making a commitment to yourself. But for real — just admit that you are selfish and it’s all about you. I do. And I don’t need the “training for a triathlon” excuse.

Is everyone really having this great a time training for triathlons in the relentless summer heat? Someone’s got to be lying, right?

Fortunately for me, I ended the summer on a positive note — a long weekend with my husband at an amazing bed and breakfast. No pictures of sandcastles. No ice cream sandwiches. No updates on the number of miles I ran that that day. No toned and tanned arms gleaming in the sunlight. Just two days of relative peace and quiet spent with my favorite person in the world, and a happy reunion with my second favorite person in the world once we returned home.

Despite those two days of glory, I’m altogether glad the summer is over. I’m happy that the pools are getting drained, the lifeguards are packing away their whistles, the triathlons ending for the season. I’m actually looking forward to the snowmaggedon, the cabin fever, and our collective cold-blooded unhappiness. I may be a miserable wretch, but at least I’m not fooling anyone with my lies of summer bliss.

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