It is a real treat for us to go over to some of our friends and go swimming in their in ground pool.  It is a beautiful setting with a nice patio and pool side tables.  The kids were pretty fearful last year when we went over their.  Molly was the only one who really wanted to get all the way into the water. . .

Well, this year, it was a bit different.  All of them were enjoying their time in the pool.  It took Dakota a little, but eventually he was in with the rest of them.  Throughout the evening the kids and their friends were asking me to get in the pool with them.  I think they just wanted to see a big guy jump off the diving board.  “WOW!  look at the size of that splash!”  Either way, I was a little apprehensive about jumping in with them.  I was enjoying my time with the adults and didn’t really feel like going through the process of changing and re-changing. 

I was considering changing and getting into the pool when Molly walked up to me with a facial expression of consternation.  “What’s wrong babes?”  “I forgot to put on my life jacket. Dominique got me out.”  Needless to say this information was a bit disconcerting.  We had done a pretty good job keeping our eye on the kids.  They had been in the pool almost three hours already and between Spencer’s 7 bathroom trips and Molly’s snack trips, we had made sure to get on their life jackets each time before they got back into the pool.  Apparently Molly had run out from going to the bathroom and just jumped off the diving board into the deep end of the pool, and as she flailed her arms to keep from drowning, Dominique pulled her up and out. By the way, she did a pretty good job keeping her head above water. 

It’s at this point that I am feeling like a nominee for loser dad.  I realize you can’t always keep an eye on your kids, but we do try.  I thought that it might be a good idea for me to go ahead and get into the pool.  This way, I could keep a more active eye on the kids.  The timing worked well; Spencer needed to go to the bathroom (I’m not exaggerating when I say he went to the bathroom about 7 times throughout those 5 hours.) so I thought I would go in with him and change.  We accomplished both errands and came outside to swim.  I was just a little behind Spencer as I saw him run to the pool and jump right in.  YES! He didn’t have on his life jacket either.  I immediately jumped into the deep end and tried to keep him up.  The other spectators to the event tell me that when I jumped in I actually took him all the way down with me and then brought him back up (I probably shouldn’t be a life guard).  As I am attempting to swim and hold up Spencer I hear, “DAKOTA!!! IS IN THE WATER!!!” Apparently in the midst of the chaos with Spencer and I, Dakota looked over to see what was going on and tipped out of his ducky fIoaty.  I hear the scream and looked over and saw Dakota sinking in the water.  I attempted to swim as fast as possible with Spencer holding on for dear life.  I was in the deep end of the pool so I couldn’t stand where I was at and I couldn’t just let Spencer go, so I yelled, “I can’t get over to him!”  Just as I yelled out, our dear friend (I say that, even though he was our dear friend before, he is even more dear now.) jumped into the pool, clothes, phone, wallet, and all; and grabbed Dakota.  Dakota ended up being fine . . . no resuscitation was necessary. 

For the next hour or more I was in a bit of a stunned state.  How often does that happen?  What does that mean for us as parents? Don’t answer that . . . please.  I’m still not sure what I have learned from this.  Give me a little time and I’ll tell you later.

Hopefully, I will post some pictures from this evening in the near future.  No, we don’t have any pictures of any of the near drownings. Once again, we didn’t have our camera and were dependent on our friends camera.