My Scary Mommy Moment

We go swimming every Wednesday at a friend's pool for our Mommy and Me playdate. I'm the only one with a toddler and a baby, so the other moms graciously help me keep an eye on Shaelyn, catch her when she wants to jump in the water, and stop her from pulling up all the flowers from the potted plants. I put her in a life jacket (which she calls her "backpack") and water wings (which she calls her "fishies") so that she can stay afloat and swim independently since I'm holding Rachelle.

However, I do take off all buoyant items when we stop swimming for lunch. The kids always finish their lunches earlier than the adults, and then proceed to run around the deck (while all of us are yelling "WALK!") until we are all ready to get back in. I keep a pretty good eye on Shaelyn, in case she decides to get reckless and jump in the water, but today I unwisely trusted that she would stay out of the water and took my eyes off her to gather up our lunch trash.

The next thing I hear is my friend yelling "Shaelyn's in the water!" I turn to look and there is my 2-year-old, completely submerged and thrashing, trying to get her head above water. I lept up, practically knocking down Rachelle and another kid along the way, to get into the water as quickly as I could. Another mom got there before me, and yanked Shaelyn up and out of the water. Luckily she only coughed and sputtered for a second, and then proceeded to cry. She was under the water for all of about 5 seconds or so, but it felt like 30. She calmed down rather quickly, but my heart was racing and stayed racing for a while. As much as I wanted her to have a healthy fear of water, I was even more worried that now she would be too terrified to ever get back in the pool, but she willingly put back on all her floating gear and got back in with her friends.

I think the shock of it all took me a while to absorb. It was fortunate that she was older, because I think she was actually holding her breath the whole time while she was under - something she would have been unable to do before now. She did not cough or sputter for anywhere near as long as I would have expected her to, and thank goodness no one had to do anything really scary like perform CPR.

I didn't really process it all until we got home that afternoon and I put her down for her nap. After I tucked her in and covered her in kisses, I left her room and cried. I finally allowed my mind to go to all those possible horrific consequences that I had been shutting out while we stayed at the pool. Life is just so fleeting and fragile and there is so little that we have control over. It is overwhelming to think about, which is why I try not to so often. But today it slapped me in the face.