As many of you know, last summer there was a near disaster with my Peter in Whittier, Alaska involving a stroller, a steep ramp, and a body of water. This time, however, no ramps or strollers, just a toddler who likes to decide for himself how he will learn his valuable lessons. We decided not to go to the coast when my mom was here, and just take a day trip to a lake about an hour away. It was going "swimmingly" until Peter decided to test his ability to follow Ella out into the waist deep water. By this time the kids had played in the sand, had some lunch, made a few potty trips, and were ready to go back out into the water. My mom took John for a walk so he might fall asleep in the stroller while we played some more. About 5 minutes after she left we went to the water's edge and started playing. I was telling Ella that she needed to come closer to me because she was getting a little brave and too far out. Peter thought it might be fun to experiment with his wading capabilities and began to wander toward her. By then I was telling both of them to come back and I started out into the water, camera in hand. Ella turned back toward me and at that moment, Peter lost his footing, attempted and failed at an impression of "Michael Phelps" and went under. Fully clothed (again, camera in hand) I leaped about 6-10 times before I reached him and pulled him up. Ella was scared, Peter was scared, I was ticked and scared, but everyone was safe, and my camera survived a complete water logging (go Canon). I can only imagine what those moms on the shore were thinking, "She shouldn't have let them wander out there..." "Maybe now he'll learn his lesson..." "Boy, I think I'll just sit here on my rear and watch that mom rescue her son and not even ask if they need anything..." I don't know, either way, if I ever see that happen to a mom, I WILL NOT sit and watch with nasty judging eyes, I will go and ask if there is something I can do to help and make sure she and her kids are okay. Geez. God sure has taught me a lot through my adventurous and disobedient son Peter, and we are on a track to some new ways of correcting his behavior and saving his life apparently. The last picture in this post is the one I took right before pulling him out of the water. I'm thankful it was not deep water and that I was as close as I had been, but the kids sure got a talking to about how they do not know how to swim and how dangerous it is to disobey around water. Lessons learned, hopefully forever.
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