One step behind

This is an oh, so familiar kind of post these days.

Last Thursday I could not keep up with the chaos. We were at Natalie and Andrew's swimming lessons and I swear every time I turned my head to take care of one thing, something else was going on behind my back.

It started before I could even see the pool. Andrew and Natalie ran ahead and around the corner to the backyard while I followed behind with the stroller, baby, towels, you name it. I rounded the corner and went to sit down when I heard a Natalie scream-cry that usually means a panic situation. I turn my head to the right and look over at the bathroom in the corner of the yard. I can just see Natalie's little bottom in the air, her little legs kneeling on the ground. Her head is stuck under the wood-slat gate that serves as the bathroom door and is locked--pretty sure Andrew had locked the door and slid out under the gate, giving Natalie the idea . I jump up, run over and manage to persuade her to flatten her head and bottom and we slide her back out.

After comforting her, I got Andrew's swimming suit on him and then I turned to my crying baby who was ready to be fed. While I was feeding him, Natalie returned to the bathroom (the door was now unlocked) and stripped down to a shirt saying she needed to use the potty. Luckily a very nice person who had her 2-year-old in the bathroom to use the potty helped her up on to the toilet, and then helped her down. AND brought the shed clothes over to me. I had Natalie put a swim diaper on, so she was running around in her shirt and swim diaper while I finished feeding James.

When I finished, I noticed that Natalie had returned to the bathroom AGAIN. I walked over there, and there she was, standing next to the toilet holding a wet swim diaper. Her swim diaper. And she was naked again.

I ran to the car to get another swim diaper and when I got back Natalie was in the pool, playing on the step, naked with a shirt on.

We finally got her swimming suit and new swim diaper on and it was her turn for a lesson. She likes to play on the deeper step during her lesson and has taken to jumping up, then under the water, then up, then under...As she does that, she doesn't always stay in one place. I went over and showed her where to stay if she wanted to jump because she was moving closer and closer to the edge of the step. I had to talk to her again about it, and again, and again...Andrew came over with a ball he wanted to play with, so I had played with him for about a minute and suddenly one of the other moms was saying something like "Ooooh, Ooooh, Ooooh!!!" I knew it was Natalie. She was under for a little bit before the teacher got to her and she was hysterical, but she was fine. While I was comforting her, Andrew got reprimanded for splashing one of the 2-year olds in the face.

And then I started laughing. Because it really felt unreal. I had been one step, or I guess one turn of the head behind, all lesson long.