I had all week

I woke up this morning with the dreaded realization that once again it's Lucy's swimming class day, and I have screwed up. The price of my screw-up will be paid in a small child's tears.

Several months ago five year old Lucy had a nightmare that she was being attacked by a "killer shark" which bit her hair and tore out a large chunk. Somehow in the dream she escaped the hair-biting shark, but this was no consolation. Overnight the same child who had been happily cavorting in swimming pools since she was six months old had a water phobia.

In what was not exactly a moment from the Parenting Hall of Fame, I let Lucy skip a lesson on the promise that she would go in the future without fussing. That turned out to be an empty promise from Lucy, who turned all subsequent Monday mornings into a hell of crying. I explained to Lucy over and over again that swimming is a safety skill and that she must improve for her own sake (Lucy can swim across a pool now if she has fins and goggles, and she can dogpaddle half way across the pool without fins). In return, Lucy offered to conscientiously shun all water for the rest of her life if I let her stop swimming lessons.

I've come close to crying myself, seeing Lucy's little chest heave with sobs at the side of the pool. I have enough backbone on this issue to force Lucy on because my Lucy nearly died by drowning at age two (I was watching her play in the pool at Camp Mather, but worried about getting too much sun, I asked the Sober Husband to get me my t-shirt. Rather than get up and carry it to me, he threw it hard, and it sailed over my head into the pool. I turned my back on little Lucy to give him a piece of my mind, and at that moment, she slipped off her float and went down. The lifeguard did not notice, but the amazing Kathy, head lifeguard, was around despite being off-duty, and she dove in, pulled out Lucy, and got Lucy to throwing up all the water she'd swallowed. Now the pool at Camp Mather is divided into three sections, shallow, mid-depth, and deep, and small children are barred from the mid-depth section. Kathy told me that this change was made specifically because of Lucy's near-drowning).

We thought that our annual trip to Camp Mather would fix this problem, since Lucy wouldn't be able to resist playing in the pool. However, Lucy had no problem determining that the Camp Mather pool is an obvious shark-free zone whereas the suburban pool where she takes lessons is clearly at high risk of shark infestation.

Last week I had a brainwave, after watching poor Lucy sob. "What if I made you a special necklace," I said, "something that tells sharks you are their queen? If it said 'Lucy is the Shark Queen', then the sharks will know to leave you alone." Lucy loved this idea.

I had one week, a busyish sort of week, to get this shark totem made, but I failed to do it. I did finish the children's Fairy Tree, a silver tree with brightly colored flowers where five fairies (the sixth one's legs fell off, and the children shun her) dwell, but I never got around to picking up the supplies needed to make an anti-shark necklace. It slipped my mind until I got out of bed this morning and said, "Fuck. I didn't make that shark necklace."

Lucy's still asleep, and I haven't had the opportunity to try out my new idea: writing "Lucy is the Shark Queen" and "Sharks Keep Away" on her with a Sharpie. Wish me luck.