Kids and Swimming

Six Meat Buffet directed me to this story at Red State Rant. It's a story told by a patrol officer of a missing little 4 yr old boy the other day in Florida. Part of the story involves the little boy's dog and it reminded me of something that happened to me several years ago. Both stories remind us that life can be gone in an instant. Even when we are good parents.

I was putting my newborn daughter down for a nap. My 2 yr old son was out in the back yard with my dog. I was only gone a minute or two because she was so easy. I would just lay her down and she would crash. I walked back out in my yard and there was no sign of my son or dog. I ran around the house and saw the gate was open. He had never even tried to open the gate before, nor did it occur to me that he actually could open it. (it had that latch thing very high up) My son had been born being afraid of NOTHING. He never looked where he was going, he never stopped to ponder what might be over that edge, or care whether he got lost. He simply had NO FEAR. I tell him now that he is 18 that the only reason he lived was that I followed him around like a puppy the first 6 yrs of his life.

Anyway, the biggest problem was that we lived across the street from a lake. The houses that backed up to the lake didn't have fences for the obvious reason of enjoying the lake, so anyone could walk between the houses to get to the lake or walk just a bit down the street where it was open to the lake which had a sidewalk surrounding it. I knew the moment I saw the gate open that my son had headed straight for that lake. Probably running at full speed. Knowing my daughter was fine and asleep I raced through the house, grabbed my car keys and was out the front door looking in all directions. He was no where in sight. Some guys were working on a light pole a few feet away. I screamed at them that my 2 yr old was missing as I jumped in my car I pointed to each one and told each which direction to go look. (back through the other parts of the neighborhood just in case) Panic causes one to become extremely bossy and I can tell you they did exactly what I told them.

I went from 0 to 60 in about 2 seconds and was at the lakefront. I saw a woman and a child feeding the ducks by the lake bank. As I jumped out of my car I yelled at her and asked her if she had seen a little blonde boy. She pointed behind the houses that were situated across the street from my house. I ran around the houses like a race horse and there was my little boy, throwing rocks into the lake with my dog, Vince (An American Eskimo-Spitz) jumping around in front of him not letting him get close to the water. My knees nearly buckled under me, but I almost tackled the poor little guy when I got to him. I held him against me and cried and cried. Trying to calm myself down I started to tell him how he was to NEVER do that again and how dangerous the water was. In every instance that I had taken him to a pool, lake, or the beach he had run for the water without stopping and jumped right in. What made him stop this time? A fluffy white angel named Vince, I'm thinking.

The event jarred me so much that I taught my son how to swim myself within about 3 weeks of that incident. I taught my other 3 children to swim by the time each was 3 years old. You think you can't do it? You can. The earlier you start, the better. Get them used to the water as soon as possible and then when they are 2, you get in that water every day practicing until they know how to swim to the side. After mine all learned, I would playfully throw them in the water so they would learn what it was like to go under quickly and push themselves to the top and make it to the side. As the story the patrol officer shows, it's worth the effort to make sure your children can swim.