Just a PSA

My husband and I put our kids in swimming lessons because we insist they know how to swim. Because we’re controlling. Because we dictate what activities they will enjoy. Because we expect nothing less than Olympians in ten to fifteen years’ time.

Okay, fine. It’s actually a lot less boring than any of those reasons. See, it’s just for plain old survival’s sake. When one set of grandparents has a pool and the other a cottage on a lake, it becomes (to us) a no-brainer. Know how to swim or, well - let’s not think of the alternative.

Except I had to do just that today: think of - and actually witness - the very beginning of the alternative. Not pretty folks. And just wait till you find out where it happened.

Swimming lessons.

So, here’s the deal.

I take my middle daughter to her lessons in the afternoon on a weekday at an old city pool. These factors combine to render those lessons very sparsely populated. We’re talking even with two sets of lessons running at the same time, no more than five kids across three pools at once. Very calm, very quiet.

So, my daughter and one of her classmates were hanging onto the edge of the pool, as instructed, while their teacher worked with their other classmate to perfect her starfish maneouver. My daughter and her friend were chatting and giggling and then they started moving side to side while still holding onto the wall. After some more giggling and moving I hear the words that I guarantee are 98.3% of the time followed by some mishap ranging from scrape to hospital trip.

“Mom, look what I can do!”

And with that my daughter decides to lift herself up and then, either because she slips or on purpose, pushes off the wall a bit. And then she plunges under water. Sure it’s the shallow end but that doesn’t quite matter to this three year old of average height. The water is still well over her head.

Down she goes.

I’m sitting on a bench not eight feet away, holding my four month old and sit up straight when I see that blond head disappear. I then see it start to come up and somehow, in some sort of warped mom-optimism, I start to think that it’s all okay, see, she’s bobbing right back up, just lost it there for a minute is all.

Except she’s three. And in swimming lessons because she doesn’t yet know how to swim or even keep herself afloat for more than a few seconds. And there’s no one in the immediate vicinity who's coming to help her. Or, perhaps more importantly, who even sees what’s happening. Except me. With the baby. And momentarily frozen.

Back down her head goes. I can see her arms and legs working madly underwater to try to suddenly figure out how to all work together to get back up but none of them are cooperating. Again her head approaches the surface, but it doesn’t break through.

Back down.

In this time I have stood up and quickly walked the short distance to the pool edge. I know now I should have called to the instructor - she had absolutely no idea what was happening to my daughter. This is where that thing you’ve heard about drowning comes into play - it’s a quiet thing. Of course there was no screaming, no pleas for help. Mouths full of water don’t make that kind of noise.

By the time I reached the pool edge, the instructor had looked up to me, seen what I was fixated on and quickly docked the girl she was helping and rescued my daughter. She brought her to the edge and then backed away, ready to continue with the lesson.

Here’s the weird thing about someone struggling to get to the surface - it can actually look like a non-event. The instructor hadn’t seen the whole struggle and did not know what had actually occurred. Not until she saw my daughter, red-faced, shaking and terrified, quietly crying out “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy” as she clung to the wall while I tried to calm her did the instructor really understand what my daughter had experienced.

The instructor went up the awesome scale in my books with her next move. She is a retired teacher-type who just went to my daughter, scooped her up and gave her a big hug. My daughter threw her arms around her neck and let out some big sobs, saying how scared she was. The instructor hugged a little longer, got my daughter to agree she was okay, and brought her back to the pool edge. For the rest of the lesson she kept things light and my daughter emerged from the lesson not noticeably scathed. The best I could hope for.

So there you have it. How I got to see the start of my daughter drowning. Man that’s awful to write. But not nearly as terrifying as watching it.

I know my daughter didn’t almost die today. I know the situation was not nearly as dire as it could be. But it was the start of something really bad. And it started in the middle of a quiet, completely non-chaotic swimming lesson, one of the safest water places she could be.