Oy. So we just got home tonight from a highly anticipated three day adventure up to Pine Mountain Lake (just outside of Yosemite) where sadly everything and I mean EVERYTHING went wrong. I'm not going to go into all of the sordid details but will mention a few "top" events just for your "entertainment". Before I begin, yes, I still have a broken toe and yes, it still hurts. But I am doing MUCH better.
The drive is about 4 hrs. Doable, for the most part, with half spent on a nice long movie and the other half on various activities such as coloring sheets, games, singing (me, mostly, poor family) etc...
We get there and the temperature is breaking 100 degrees. I'm not a big fan of the heat. But my friend's cabin has a community pool so we unload and immediately hit the pool. Things go very well during our time at the pool and I am lulled into a false sense of security thinking: "Oh Boy! This is GREAT! Everything is going soooooo smoothly!" Clearly the universe decided to make me pay for my hopeful, optimistic and clearly naive thoughts....
That night, I'm whipping up a gourmet meal of mac n cheese with veggie dogs and frozen french peas (I know, I know) and the kids are BEAT from their long travel day and 2 hrs at the pool so everything starts to fall apart. I expected as much though so I quickly get them fed and in bed but they take forever to conk out despite being exhausted. Still, nothing too dramatic by any stretch. I stay up and get caught up on some magazines I had brought along since there is no internet access where we are. I'm still doing OK with the lack of Wi-Fi seeing as I'm only about 5 hrs in from not having any connectivity. Little did I realize the detox process was just beginning. Again, naive.
The next morning, kids wake up early, as expected, I get them fed and into bathing suits, all sunscreen-ed up, picnic lunch packed (blah blah blah) and off we go to the lake for a day of "fun filled" activities. Ok. Start your engines folks. We get there, it's practically empty because most everyone is back in school which is great for us. The lake has a cordoned off area for swimming with these two HUGE floating trampolines in the far deeper end of the swimming area. Of course, that's the first thing the kids want to do. Now, the lake is a tad bit cold (not unbearable but definitely colder than I can happily manage) and Gavin just goes right in and starts heading for the trampoline. He is a decent swimmer but not a strong swimmer yet and I certainly can't let him out of my sight in these murky waters so I assign Jason "Gavin Duty" and he goes out to the trampoline first with Gavin and they have fun bouncing around there. Ellie, of course, NEEDS to go too. She can swim remarkably well for a four year old but still not even CLOSE to good enough to be anywhere where she can't touch bottom. So I take her out there by having her hang on my back while I breaststroke out there. Now, we are all on the trampoline and everyone is having a good time. Yeah. Insert "Jaws" soundtrack. Ok, not sharks but things start to go downhill at this point. Have I mentioned that the water is really murky and it's impossible to see past about half a foot? And deep. Really deep. And my kids are not the strongest swimmers. So, dad has Gavin duty right. Right. I'm now in the water with Ellie and kinda hanging on the bouncy floaty trampoline thing and I don't see Gavin. I call out to Jason, on the other side of the big thing, which I can't see around, and ask him if he has Gavin with him. He says : "No, I thought Gavin was with you." My heart literally skipped a beat and I am not exaggerating when I tell you I felt it skip that beat and then start POUNDING out of my chest. We start calling for Gavin while frantically looking around the big floating trampoline, trying to see into the deep murky waters, looking off to shore, screaming out his name, I am FREAKING out on the inside but trying to stay calm for Ellie who immediately senses my tension and starts freaking out herself. NOTHING. No Gavin. I'm about to either throw up or burst into tears and I see his little head pop up from the water near the shoreline about 100 yards away. The little bugger had swam all the way back to shore without telling us where he was going and kept going under water to try to get a better look at all the little fishies which is why we couldn't see him. At that point I was so relieved to see him I didn't even talk to him about the situation until I had regained my composure because I knew I'd start bawling if I even tried to explain to him how scared I was by the whole thing. Of course when I did talk to him later he just looked at me like a three eyed monster and was like: "what's the big deal mom?" SIGH.
So, I decide, enough water trampolines. Let's go boating instead. A nice, stable, peaceful sail boat sounds great right about now. The harbor there had these cute little "beginner" level sailboats and Jason and I decided we'd take two boats out. He would go out with Gavin on one and I would go out with Ellie on another. Jason is too big for all of us to fit on one boat so that seemed like the best idea since I knew Jason would want to go a bit faster and I would just like to cruise along nice and slow with Ellie. I've sailed before and so has Jason so we felt comfortable with everything. Plus the winds were BARELY present and the guy was like, geee, you know, there's hardly any wind out there, you might go really slow. And I was totally cool with that. We get all our little life vests on and off we go. We are plugging along nice and slow and the kids are loving it and I'm feeling like the day could possibly be redeemed at this point and even let myself kinda relax a bit and let my shoulders drop from the high point they had been at from the "Gavin Incident."
Then, all of a sudden, TOTALLY fast and out of the blue a huge wind gust hits me and Ellie and flips that sailboat over in about a nanosecond. I barely had time to reach towards her and grab her as we flipped over. The darn boat landed on top of us and pushed us deep into the water and even though I opened my eyes and tried to see her (I never let go of her and had her vest in my hands the whole time but could not see her underwater), I couldn't, and I was disoriented from the fall and trying to figure out which way to push up to. We came up but, naturally, came up directly under the boat and bonked it and then I am desperately trying to get us to SURFACE and get some air because I am quickly running out of air at this point and freaking out wondering if Ellie is OK. We finally surface and Ellie and I are totally choking from the water we swallowed in our tumble and then as soon as we cough it all out she starts to totally freak out (understandably) and I swim us over to the capsized boat and hold onto her with one hand and the boat with the other hand. The gust of wind had thrown Jason and Gavin far away from us and they were desperately trying to make their way back but of course, the wind had virtually disappeared at that point and they weren't moving. Fortunately, the rescue boat was out there and by our side within 2 minutes. Ellie was a mess, poor kid was screaming: "I HATE BOATS! I HATE BOATS!" over and over again and practically jumped into the arms of the rescue officer. Now, I had to leave Ellie in the care of the rescue personnel and still get that flippin' boat back to the Harbor. Ugh. The rescue guy mentioned that they sometimes get these overpowering wind gusts that come out of nowhere and flip you over. It would have been NICE if the boat rental people had MENTIONED that to us when we got the boats KNOWING we were going out with two small kids... SIGH.
Anywho. I get on the boat and head back. I hated leaving Ellie alone on the boat but teh officer was great and had her sitting on his lap driving the boat alongside me, honking at me and laughing at me when ONCE AGAIN a gust hit me and flipped me and the boat over. Argh. But, not remotely scary due to Ellie no longer being on the boat so it didn't bother me that second time. Did I mention I lost my NEW hat in the first boat flip incident? Grrrr. The good news is that the officer was able to really calm Ellie down and turn a bad situation into her being all smiles by the time I got back to the harbor. I should mention that Jason and Gavin decided to stay out there and lo and behold, they too got flipped over. Fortunately, they landed on the backside of the water so didn't go under or have anything too scary happen and although Gavin was hesitant to get back on the boat, he did do it and I'm really proud of him for that.
We finally all make it back to the harbor and it was ice creams for everyone at that point just to settle the nerves. I spent the whole rest of the day and night having that moment of being under water with Ellie in my grasp but not being able to see her, not being able to breathe and not being able to see anything but swishing water all around me. I assure you, that will not leave my psyche anytime soon. I simply cannot handle that many frightening situations involving my kids in ONE day.
That evening the kids were, again, BEAT and even though I had them in bed at 7pm, it was a rough evening. The third day we decide to go back to the pool, my thought process being you will never see me go near murky water with my kids EVER again. I'm not kidding folks. Clear, pool water with a shallow end. That's the way we roll now peeps. So, Gavin is playing around in the deep end with Jason and I am in the shallow end sitting on the stairs with Ellie right by me in the 3' deep area where she has footing and everything is cool. I start talking to the mom sitting next to me and, please don't hate me, totally take my eyes off Ellie for all of 30 seconds. Of course, that's all it took for her to swim her way out past the point where she had footing and with all the splashing going on in the pool I didn't hear or notice that she WAS DROWNING a mere 5 feet away from me. Jason comes screaming towards me swimming faster than I knew him ever able to and I see him scoop Ellie up and she is coughing up water and trying to cry but can't because of all the water she swallowed. If I could, I would say A VERY BAD WORD THAT BEGINS WITH AN F right now on this blog but I won't. I am probably the worst mom ever at this point. I totally take the hit on that one. MASSIVE GUILT. I will never forgive myself for that. I totally lost my focus for 30 seconds and that's all it took. I should mention that if you think your child is going to be able to scream for you if they start drowning, be advised that they won't. It will be so silent it could happen less than 5 feet away from you and you wouldn't even know it. FRIGHTENING. She didn't make a peep and didn't splash frantically, NOTHING. Just starting sinking to the bottom. UGH. So now Ellie is DONE with the pool. And we realize, you know what, it's time to go home.
And so began the long, miserable trek back home. And I didn't even tell you all the little stuff that went wrong either. I'm thinking the only good thing is that I probably only took about 5 or 6 pictures the whole trip and if I just delete them I can pretend like that trip NEVER happened.... right?
Besides all the negative "STUFF", the cabin itself was lovely and the Pine Mountain Lake area was gorgeous, if that counts for anything...
Ellie has her Kindergarten Orientation tomorrow and I am going to stay up tonight and just do some sewing to help find my zen. I already made Gavin a new shirt for his first day of second grade and have been working on a new snazzy, super cute pleated skirt for Ellie to wear on her first day of Kindergarten. So, after I return all those business related emails, I am going to go zone out with my sewing machine and having BEAUCOUP gratitude that we all made it out of there alive!
All's well that ends well, right!? :)
