Lucians first “swim” was at five weeks old. As newbie travel parents, my husband and I were feeling brave and took Lucian into the pool for her first taste of swimming.
She loved it! Splishing and splashing all over the place, our little fish was having a blast. I had a regular old Michael Phelps on my hands! Then, in true newborn mode, she fell asleep right in the middle of her splash party. Cute, right?
Now, let the failing begin….
As the sun was starting to set on our little snoozing swimmer, we decided it was time to get out, so we moved across the pool. Being a total mom newbie, I sort of forgot that I was swimming with my new family and I proceeded to move ahead of them, working on my spectacular dolphin dives like I was a five year old. Completely obliviously to my surroundings, I didn’t notice that the water was getting deeper and deeper as I moved toward the ladder, with my husband and baby following behind. Once I made it to the ladder, I looked back expecting to see the perfect InstaMoment, with my sleeping swim baby and palm trees swaying in the background. Instead, I could only see my husband’s two LIPS above the surface of the water, nothing else, and LUCIAN was the one swaying in the breeze, being held high up in the air like Simba being announced to the pride lands!
O.M.G!
Without a second thought, I dove off the ladder (looking more like a whale, than a graceful dolphin this time) and went into full fledged mama bear rescue mode.
Now, here is where it all gets interesting.
My husband who is underwater is 6’2″, I am 5’7″ and the water depth is 6′. No fancy math needed here.
How was I possibly going to help? I couldn’t touch at that depth either! (Insert some MC Hammer….Can’t Touch This)
So there we were, the poster children for newbie parents, scrambling like cats in a bathtub, yelling at each other, trying not to drown and then there’s our kid…..still asleep, totally unaware and unharmed.
Once we made it out of the pool, we both stood still, catching our breath and having the exact same realization. We are THOSE people right now, the newbie parents that have no business taking a baby in the deep end and we probably should’ve stuck to wadding around in the zero depth. Dumb. Dumb. SO DUMB!
Even with this hard truth lesson learned, the never-ending adventurer in me challenges this:
Life doesn’t happen in the shallow end, it happens when you jump off the ledge into the deep!
Help me feel normal, share a dumb moment of your own.
Nadia was taking a bath and Raven (18 months or so at the time) was playing in the bathroom while I was catching up on laundry. I took my eyes off Raven for a few moments when at that very moment she decided she wanted to check out some toys in the bathtub. I looked back after hearing some commotion and saw Raven balancing ever so perfectly face down in the bathtub water, belly on the side of the tub and legs and feet midair. Now my 5 year old just sat there in the tub staring at her screaming. Sometimes you hear stories of neglectful parents and you think ” how stupid…what were they thinking?” After that moment I realized how things can happen so fast and how stupid I was for putting ourselves in that situation.
Ah…the bathroom danger zone! Been there my friend! 🙂 Thanks for sharing!