“No, no play in the fishy water!”

Saturday, my husband and I found ourselves with a very rare, completely free day.  Can you imagine?  Nothing written on the calendar for a Saturday?  So exciting!  This will probably not happen again before the baby is born, considering everytime I look at the calendar for the next month I shudder, so we knew we should take advantage of it.

We decided to gather up the girls and go. . . . fishing!  We revealed our plan to the little girls, who instantly started cheering and chanting, “we’re going fishing with daddy!” as they ran out to the van.

There is a particular pond we like to go to that is not far from our house so we headed over.  We found a little spot by some picnic tables and started getting poles ready for the girls.  Well, to be more accurate, my husband started getting poles ready and I started freaking out about Miss 1.  As soon as she saw the pond she yelled, “play in the water!” and started waving her little arms and squirming to get away from me.  Of course I said “no no, that water is for the fishes, not the little girls,” and instantly started trying to hang on tighter to her.    Things went ok for awhile.  Miss 1 was careening back and forth and I was chasing her, trying to make her hold my hand.  There was a super nice man there who was reeling in fish after fish and giving them to us.  Apparently, his wife had forbid him to bring home anymore fish for their freezer, which was already super full of his catches.  This was wonderful for us because we never actually catch anything.  The little girls can’t sit still long enough.  I was trying to hold onto Miss 1 while running back and forth to recast the little girl’s poles and keep them happy.  I generally have very low blood pressure, but I have to wonder what it would have been if the doctor had checked it right then. . .

Finally, it seemed like things might be calming down.  I wrestled Miss 1 into a chair with me and convinced her to help me hold my pole.  She was occupied for a few seconds.  But then I look over and see Miss 7 hitting Miss 6.   Uh oh.  I sent Miss 1 to daddy, set down my pole, and went over to separate them.  I had to drag Miss 6 over a few feet and set her down again.  Meanwhile Miss 4 had gotten bored with the whole thing and was dancing back and forth between Miss 6 and Miss 7.    I went back to my chair, retrieved Miss 1 from daddy and tried to interest her in my pole again.  This did not work out, because well, she is one and her attention span is about as long as you would expect it to be at that age.  I look over and see that Miss 6 is hunched over crying.  Ugh.  Miss 1 is squirming out of my lap and I decide to let her, thinking maybe she will cheer up Miss 6.  I walk her over and sit her on the ground by Miss 6.  I move back to my chair, which is only a couple feet away from them.  I am trying to calm down, thinking things might be okay now, but still on my guard, and keeping my eyes on Miss 1. 

Before I could even fully sit back down, Miss 1 stood up, tried to turn around, bent over to get something from the grass, and FELL headfirst INTO THE POND!!

AHHH!!!

I ran to her, she floated face down for a second or two and was just trying to stand back up and starting to fall over again when I reached her.  (Luckily, she was at the edge and the pond wasn’t very deep right there.)  I scooped her up and tried to hold her up, while she spit out water and gasped for air.  Poor little thing.  Of course she was upset, I was upset, and we were both soaking wet from head to toe.  I tried to calm her down as we hurried to the van to dry her off and get her warmed up.

Turns out we were only at that pond for HALF AN HOUR.  It felt much, much, much, longer than that.

On a good note, the rest of the day, Miss 1 walked around saying things like, “no no play in the fishy water,”  and “mama saved me.”  And we had super delicious fresh fish for dinner.  What a day!