It Could Have Been Worse.

Today was sort of a bad day. It’s hard for my time in Texas to go sour when my daily “to do” list consists of taking the husband to work, swimming with the boys, exploring with the boys, kicking around vacation laundry, squeezing in a run at the apartment complex’s gym, cooking a quick dinner, playing with the boys and the husband, and then occasionally doing the dishes—but only if I feel like it.

However today—the day that our ‘days remaining’ became less than the ‘days enjoyed’ in Texas—trouble was out to get me. Plenty of people thought they would go for a mid-day run right when Atrain and I wanted to use the treadmills. And, because I doubt other gym-goers would appreciate watching the Disney channel and sharing equipment space with a three year old and a rug rat, we opted to swim instead.

So, there we were: Atrain anxiously dancing around while I tried to strap on his water-proofed cochlear while caging jiggly, wiggly baby J between my legs. It was a hard task, and when it was through I was happy to let Atrain hop into the pool with his inner tube while I sat nearby, smearing sun screen all over Jdog. Atrain has become quite the little flotation-assisted swimmer in the past week, considering that I can count the number of times the boy has been to the pool before this trip on one hand. We had a hard time taking him to swim, knowing that it meant sans-sound for him. He loves to hear. Whenever he’s without the CIs he’s (of course) still the same kid, but he sinks into himself—unable to adequately communicate with the world around him. This is where the cochlear critics begin to salivate as they imagine how beautiful it would be to barbecue the parents of this poor implanted child. But if only they knew Atrain. If only they could see how much he loves laughing and conversing with his cousins, how much he looks forward to having his own violin recital, how incredible it is to hear him “read” his Star Wars book, “A long time ago in a galaxy far far away…” And if only they could see how happily he swims with his 'waterproofed' cochlear. Yesterday he spent at least three hours in the pool, playing all sorts of games with his new Texas best friend PJ—a friend he would have had a much harder time bonding with if they didn’t communicate in the same language.

Now back to my sort of bad day. As I lathered up baby J, I kept a close watch on the new little ‘swimmer’ (who still needs to learn how to swim). I tossed Atrain his squirt gun, and as he reached forward to grab it he somehow slipped out of his tube. Instantaneous panic. I immediately jumped into the pool, latched onto Atrain’s arm and pulled his kicking body up out of the water. It was only a matter of seconds and he was fine, thankfully, but we were all quite shaken by the moment. (Including baby J, who was certainly shocked to enter the water with me at such a speedy rate). I sat Atrain down on the pool steps as he coughed and blinked with wide, frightened eyes. I did my best to be brave as I talked us both through what had just happened. After a few minutes he said, “I held my breath and went under like Dada, but I don’t want to do it again.” I don’t ever want him to do that again either, and am not planning any more pool trips without dada. But, in order to avoid experience scars, we cautiously proceeded back into the pool. Within a matter of minutes he and his inner tube were kicking their way with me around the pool.

My phone, on the other hand, is not the greatest swimmer. It was in my gym shorts when I darted into the pool. And, on our way to the Sprint store to look into a replacement, one of the struts on our car popped. The right passenger side composed a catastrophic clanking and cranking symphony all the way to pick up the husband. Better put that on the ‘to do’ list tomorrow. Oh well. I sure enjoyed being with the husband and the kiddos tonight. And really, who cares about a dead phone and a broken strut when all I can think about is how today could have been worse. Much worse.