The scare of my life

About 40 miles north and east of where we live is a dinky little resort town (pop. 521, I read on the sign today) whose claim to fame is natural hot springs and an Olympic size pool. My parents have had a timeshare condo there since I was a kid, so one week every summer the whole family gathers up there to play. Now that we're all grown up with families and schedules of our own, people just drop in and out, but today was the family July Birthdays party so nearly everyone was there at the same time (DH couldn't come because he was on call).

First, we ate; next we had cake and ice cream and let the honorees (including Dos) open their presents; after that, everyone got ready to go swimming at the big ol' pool, which is directly behind the condo. That takes a while with ~30-some-odd people: There are bathing suits to put on, towels to be gathered, sunscreen to be slathered, swimming toys collected and kids to be counted....

Except that when we counted mine, Uno was missing.

I had been getting myself dressed, and then changing Dos into a swimming diaper and her bathing suit. Uno wasn't with us, but I figured she was in one of the other rooms getting herself ready (she's so independent these days). Everyone else must have assumed she was with me. As it turned out, she wasn't anywhere.

A couple people ran over to the clubhouse. One went to check the playground. A sister and some nieces ran over to the river, which runs directly beside the condo, where a kid might be fascinated by all the people tubing / rafting.

I ran up to the pool and asked the admissions lady if she had seen a four-year-old girl, short blonde hair, in a blue swimming suit and blue floaties, come in. She shrugged. "It's been a busy day; I've seen lots of kids." Thanks, lady.

By that time, I was feeling very panicky; Uno has slipped away from me before (she's TOO independent and curious) but she's never gotten so far out of my sight that I couldn't find her pretty quickly. This time, though, I had no idea how long she'd been gone. I had no idea where she'd go, with so many tantalizing possibilities. She's soooo social, I know she would go with anyone who asked her to: An old man in the grocery store good naturedly teased her a while back that she was so precocious, he wanted to take her home with him. "Okay," she said, moving to hold his hand. And then to me, "Mom, you go home with Dos and I'm going to go to his house." (Aaaaiiieee!) So of course I had visions of pedophiles (who, I'm sure, love to hang out at busy swimming pools like this one) luring her away without even the need to promise her candy....

Since the swimming pool lady was no help, I decided to take a quick peek through the fence (I didn't have any cash on me at the time to pay to get in) near the shallow end. Uno doesn't know how to swim and she's terrified of going any farther than the steps, so I knew that if she were there she ought to be relatively easy to spot. Except of course that it's one of the pool's busiest days of the year -- the Saturday of a holiday weekend (for Utahns, anyway, which most of the patrons are; it's their Founder's Day holiday). The place was PACKED (and the pool is HUGE). I looked and looked and I didn't see her. I was crying by that time, horrible scenarios running through my mind....

...And then suddenly, she popped her head out of the water. She was playing on the steps with her face mask on, practicing putting her head in the water. I yelled to her, but of course she didn't hear me over all the commotion from all the other people. I yelled her name again. Again, nothing. A man sitting on a towel on the inside of the fence asked me which kid was mine, and I pointed to Uno; he went and got her for me.

I sobbed as I dragged her butt back to the condo, trying to spit out the words of a decent talking-to: Never, EVER go somewhere without a grownup that you know. Everybody has been out looking for you, and I was so, so scared that something bad happened! You could have fallen in the water and not known how to get out. A bad guy could have taken you and I'd have never seen you again. ("But Mom, a bad guy did come and I kicked his booty with my super strength power!" Ugh, kid. Be serious for a moment!)

Sheesh.

Anyway. All's well that ends well. I dragged her back to the condo, we counted the kids again to make sure we had EVERYBODY, and then we all went to the pool together. Uno and Dos both practiced their swimming on the steps of the shallow end -- with me watching them extra closely -- in preparation for the swimming lessons they start next week. Uno even got brave enough to venture off the steps in the last 20 minutes we were there, when she finally realized that the water wasn't deep enough to even reach her chest, lol.

I'm so relieved that nothing happened. It still makes me cry to think of all the things that could have easily happened, to think that I could have lost her for good. Holy cow. I've never ever been so scared. We had a fun day after that ordeal, but boy howdy am I glad this day is over; I hope to never have another one like it.


~RCH~