A New Mommy in Town

It's a sunny spring break day and I am at the community pool with my three boys. Bronson is babbling and waddling around the kiddie pool a few feet away. I am standing by the edge in my purple bikini ( pretty proud of that:), and I glance over to find Ben and Bodee, 7 and 5, both decent swimmers, but still sequestered to the below 3 1/2 foot area.

One Mommy, one set of eyes, and three boys.
I find them, take a long drink from my Klean Kanteen, and then glance back at Bronson.
At first my mind does not compute what I am seeing. Bronson is face down in the water, silently moving his legs and arms about, the water swirls around him. There is no sound.He is so quiet. My brain finally connects what's happening and I rush to him and pull him out of the water. He coughs and burps. No water comes up, but he is clearly gasping for air.
I hold him, wipe the water off his face, and inspect his face and body as if I could read somehow that he is ok.I am stunned by how silent it all was. A mom stands two feet away with her back to us, combing her hair.
She turns around, I tell her what happened, wondering if there is anything I should be doing. She is surprised, but gave me the "been there done that" speech.

The incident, and my reaction of momentarily freezing, sparks my little voice to comment that I am crazy to bring all three to the pool by myself, what was I thinking? and Why did I freeze? What kind of a mother freezes?
Then I get that that little voice is just trying to protect me...make me so wrong and bad that I will just stay at home with my boys,watch TV and be safe.

I shake it off, go to the big pool, keeping a close eye on Bronson's breathing, which is fine, and join my big boys. They play, it's fun.
Then suddenly Bodee is screeching, sputtering and acting like he nearly drowned.
"What happened?" I ask
"I was walking to get Ben(in the pool)and then I shrank!" he cries dramatically.
It's the end of the world! Bodee shrank! I catch myself from laughing because this is obviously very serious to him.
I explain to him that he didn't shrink, the pool gets deeper the further you go into it.
He doesn't care and wails at the top of his lungs. The same mother that was brushing her hair before sees the drama, nods a knowing nod and says "It's time for Mommy to go home."
I get the she is empathizing. The old me would have gotten frustrated with Bodee, angry with myself for having two near drowning incidents within ten minutes, and would have tersely packed up and ushered a pack of wailing boys home. Enough is enough I would think. This overwhelmed Mother can't handle one more accident.

This time however, I am just present to how much fun we are having at the pool. Yes, stuff happens. It doesn't mean anything about me as a mother. In fact I am on the pool stairs, one foot from Bronson and he falls over again, face down. I pick him up, he doesn't cry, and in a second we are bouncing and splashing about.
This is a new Mommy in town.
This one doesn't pack up and shout and go home when something goes wrong.
This one stays and plays.
Thank you very much.

Zen Honeycutt
www.zenspurplegarden.com

I am reminded that I am doing this with my business now, yes the economy is down, I am, however, Stayin and Playin!