Fail

I experienced mommy fail today.

Today was the girl's 2nd birthday party. It was a fabulous time and I'm so glad everyone came. However, we did have a near tragedy. One friend's little girls got into our pool (in ground, not huge, fairly shallow with the deep end being 6ft and the shallow end being extended). One of the girls got in too deep. I'm not sure of the details - I was right there on the other side of the pool but I was watching other kids and talking and just not paying attention to that one girl. Apparently it got pretty scary and one party-goer jumped in and grabbed her up. It was a bad thing. Girl's mommy wasn't there - which was just a poor planning kinda deal, she was getting something and the girls weren't supposed to get in without her (family rule of mine that everyone follows gladly - no kids without parents in the pool, if parent's aren't there then said kids must wear life jackets AND must have other authorized adult present IN the pool. One of many pool rules). It was very brief and no harm was done except a few accelerated heartbeats and maybe some acute hypertension. Girliegirl is fine and just a bit shook up, as she should be. I hope that these little incidents are the things that prevent the big tragic incidents for everyone. Of course, within minutes of that girlie was fine. She was on my lap talking about it and then I hear "Hi mommy!" and MY girlie is in the pool!!! She got herself right in! Mommy that was in charge of my girlie (since with my disability I can't get in the pool without major assistance and so I just don't do it) was busy telling her boydude something and took her eyes off my girlie for just a second. My girlie made a beeline for the pool before anyone could see it happen!!! Now, she was fine - holding onto the edge and smiling ear to ear. I sure did feel like massive failure after the two incidents though. You'd think incident A would be enough to prevent incident B but...b is for but. It didn't happen. I know that I should have been in charge of my own child, I get that. There's my mommy fail. I also should have been keeping a general eye on all the kids in the pool and I didn't - mommy fail dos. I feel horrible about what happened and I'm just extremely thankful that girliegirl is ok and nothing serious happened because it could have. Pools are a fantastically fun thing for kids but that much water is deadly and dangerous -especially to new swimmers. We did have a pile of lifejackets down at the pool when this happened and we enforced more usage. I need to get my girlie her first life jacket this year! Unfortunately she won't need it too long so it won't be a super cute/expensive one. She'll get something plain and size appropriate. Of course it would be size appropriate if it was cute - but it would have been size appropriate with Disney princesses on it (peeeeeeenseeeeeeeeessssssssssss!!!!).

Ah that pool, a fun thing to have - nice to have the fun of a pool with the privacy of your yard. Expensive as all get out though. Last year my parents sunk $10,000 in the pool to give it a little facelift. The child safety gate system was something like $5,000 but its got a 10 year warranty, the chemicals we have to use in it are expensive, to just fill it up with water is $200 or so. Its a money suck. A fun, attractive, useful money suck. We'd save a hell of a lot with community waterpark/pool passes and their crappy concession stand food. At home though I can make us sugar free snow cones though so that's good. Yes, I own a snow cone maker. I bought it for myself during my last pregnancy. I love it too. So kiss that.

Oh so anyway, girliegirl's sister is being baptized tomorrow. I'll call her beautyqueen. Beautyqueen is 7 and she's a real sweetie since she stopped being allowed to watch Hannah Montana. Lemme tell ya, that beautyqueen had a bosy streak you could see from a mile away! Now she's way more constructive with it and just a nice kid to be around - she was before too, but my sensitive boy couldn't handle her in the Hannah days, now he thinks she's great! So beautyqueen is getting baptized tomorrow morning and when she came up to me with that sweet face and told me, the first thing out of my mouth was "Can I come watch?" I don't think her intent was to ask me, but she sure lit up when I asked :) She said "yeah!!! Its at 8:30!!" so then I had to clarify, I will come, girlie will come, manboy will be sleeping at home. He doesn't like to get up before noon - when you're that handsome you need your beauty sleep I guess. He's only 6. Teenage years will kill me here. I'm totally excited to watch her be baptized. I've missed some of their events because of my surgeries and I really try to make it a point to go to whatever I can so that they know that I care and to build that long lasting relationship. I'm hoping that we'll all still be this close when the kids are teens and that beautyqueen will know that I'm here to support her through that stuff too.

Anyway! This 8:30 church time is bumming me out. Don't church people sleep??? LOL I know they do, but ya see - since my surgeries sleep has become so much more important. I know I'll manage JUST fine with one day where I wake up earlier. I'll be just fine. However, it made me realize that I LIKED being part of a church and all that goes with it before we moved here. I really did. I looked but never found the right church for us that agreed with enough of my morals. See, I'm not a big religious person and I do struggle with the concept of God on a weekly basis. I don't know exactly where I stand but I DO know that when you find a church that preaches your values and morals that you will find a WHOLE lot of other people with those same values and morals. This is a good thing. Finding the right church fit however is a long hard road. Well, unless you're lucky. I do think that church is something we should explore as a family this summer. I might make the homeschool focus on various religions for the next couple of months and we can learn about them together. That part of homeschool I'm FINE with learning together - he's totally getting a tutor when we get to higher level math!

I think the thing that has put me off of finding a church more than anything is sleep. Sleep is so desperately important to my life now. I must find a service that starts at 10-11am. I don't want a Sunday night service. I have a good reason too. When I was pregnant with manboy I live in a Baptist women's shelter. We went to church Tuesday, Wednesday and twice on Sunday. I didn't mind it - I kind of liked it, it was good stuff. The only thing I DIDN'T like is that Sunday night's service was a condensed and interrupted version of Sunday morning. In the time I stayed there we went to 5-6 different churches and it was ALWAYS like that. Sunday night was when people felt like it was ok to go to church sick, interrupt the preaching mid-sermon, leave, listen to ipods, take their loud children (I've got kids - I know that "I GOTTA GO PEEEE PEEEEEEEEE!' is bound to be yelled at sometime, but these are the kids who talk non-stop, much like manboy when he's not entertained), and talk during the service. Sunday night was for the people who were doing it cause they HAD to.

So I think that next month, say mid-July, I will start looking at specific churches for my family to attend. There are some that I will go to simply because I went there when I was in the shelter and it will bring back memories of the first time manboy was ever in a church. Then girlie will have her first time in a church in that same church and I'll cry. Its a good cry though, I just hope I remember how to get there! I also had some great mentors from that church and I'd love to see if they're still there. Positive influences, they're a good thing. One other thing in that particular church. I was assigned a prayer warrior when I was late in my pregnancy with manboy. That woman was in her late 80's, sweet as honey and understanding like nothing else. She knew about my drug problem without me saying a word. She brought me a stepping stone with the serenity prayer and a cross with the same that I keep to this day, always near my work area. Anyway, she died shortly after I had manboy and I really credit her with keeping me sane in the late pregnancy and keeping me feeling loved and like I had family even when my family was far far away. She was such a dear woman and she really touched my soul. I want to bring girlie to the church so she can see her. I don't know if she's still alive, but if she's not, I know that she'll see her in that church. I just know. So mid-July, I will take my babies to that church and we will see if it still fits. If it doesn't, we will look again. With manboy being homeschooled, its important that he has a regular social group to belong to. If I find a church who practices my values and morals that has a homeschooling group - well hey! I'm good to go. If I find the right church but it doesn't have a homeschooling group he'll at least have a Sunday school class he can be in (I think....this depends on my mommy comfort level and we'd have to be there for a while!) and that would be good for him as well.
I know a lot of people have met the con artists, the criminals, and the insane at church and I'm not dumb enough to think it won't or can't happen with us at churches I knew at one point or ones that follow my values. I know it won't all be great, some won't even be close to good, but it will be an experience. Experiences are what make life worth it.