Slow Motion

It was kind of like I was watching a movie. I was sitting in the shallow end of the pool with my friend Heather and the baby. I asked Heather if she had seen Lollipop in the last few minutes. I don't know why I asked specifically about her, but I knew I needed to check on her. She said, "They are all over by the diving board." I look up and there is my child all dressed up in pink walking the plank. She walks to the end. She turns around. I say, "She better not."

And she did.

She attempted the back flip she has been telling me she was going to do for weeks while I had been telling her no, its not safe. Attempted is probably not good enough. She did it alright, but she hit her head in the process. I screamed something not nice and Heather said, "I don't think she hit her head, I think it just looked like it from here." I stood up. She did not resurface. Lifeguard jumps in. I threw the baby at Heather. I RAN across the very crowded pool in my swimsuit (so not pretty). She comes up SCREAMING and I want to hug her and kill her all at the same time.

We go to the Lifeguard station and check her out. No bleeding. Bump already formed and is poking out and not in. She's coherent. We fill out reports. She cries and cries and cries. I joke that we aren't going to tell daddy. Her brother says, "Does this mean we have to leave?" I do not think this is funny. We do leave. We go see her daddy at work (because I know he will need a visual or will be crazy with worry the rest of the day) and she cries more because she thinks he is going to be mad at her. I take her home. We talk about why its important to listen. She says, "You know, I did like a hundred of those back flips at RC camp (tennis camp, they swam after tennis lessons)." My boy says, "Yeah, she's really good at them." And I wonder how on earth I'm going to survive motherhood :).

You can pat yourself on the back if you figure out what she got out of the freezer to use as an ice pack when we got home. She knew I needed to laugh.