Adventures in Parenting, Miami edition
Our family recently returned from a trip to Miami FL with my parents and sisters’ families. It was 5yo Drake and 3yo Guppy’s first trip to that state. The hotel property we stayed at had a giant pool area, with a zero-depth entry, giant slide and a little jacuzzi pool.
Our first day at the pool, Drake wanted to go down the slide. It was high, curved, and encased in rock. We couldn’t see the top from the bottom, and vice versa. I went with him, because the pool it ended in was 4′, over Drake’s head, and he doesn’t yet swim. We went down it the first couple times together. The next couple times I met him at the bottom and swam him to the shallow water. Then he ran up the stairs calling, “Let’s go down together again, Mom!”
I walked up the steps to the top of the slide. He was gone. A mom in front of me said, “He should wait till he hears the signal beep to go down.” I can’t remember if I even heard the last of her sentence as I turned to race down the steps, and dive into the pool where Drake was struggling under the slide. There wasn’t a lifeguard; it was swim at your own risk. Or that of your impulsive 5yo, in our case. The handful of other parents around the pool were just realizing something was wrong as I dove in and pushed him up and out of the water. He had swallowed some, but not aspirated it, and might have been more angry than scared. He screamed for a long time, as the other parents stopped by to offer sympathy and make sure he was OK. Drake eventually stopped screaming and we went down a few more times, always being very clear that he wait for me at the top or make sure I was waiting at the bottom, plus not rush down the slide too soon after the kid in front of him.
Within the hour I was taking a break and my mom was watching Drake and Guppy play on the steps of the jacuzzi pool. Guppy threw a ball in the water. Drake lunged after it, unaware that the water was over his head. My mom waded in to fish him out. Drowning #2 averted.
About this time we’d had enough and returned to our room. Drake and Guppy still had some energy to burn, so were racing around the space, which had a sliding glass door to the patio. G. Grod said “Stop running,” just as Drake ran full-speed into the glass window. Screaming. More screaming. A little more screaming, and some frozen peas on the huge goose egg that erupted on his forehead, and was so bruised that it eventually leaked internally down his face, giving him two black eyes.
My sister Sydney came to babysit then, and took good care of the injured daredevil. G. Grod and I beat a hasty exit for a noisy, but by comparison positively relaxing dinner out. No further disasters ensued. Apparently Drake just needed to get them all out of his system on the first day.