Why I'll never win "Mother of the Year"

The other day I put Ava in the bathtub in our bathroom, she needed a bath and I needed to clean so I figured it was a win/win situation. She's taken a bath in there before, and other than the fact that it's shaped different and quite a bit larger I wasn't worried about her. She was always in my view. I peeled off for a minute to pee, (the toilet is a mere 5 feet from the tub, but in a separate room ) I didn't hear the splashing that I had heard before, and as soon as I peeked out my heart dropped. She was thrashing around, under water. The image that will haunt me is her eyes wide open, her mouth gasping for air, and her arms and legs trying to get to get to a position where she could support herself. I immediately yanked her by the arm out of the water, unafraid of the fact that I could have pulled her shoulder out of socket. I didn't even dry her off and I just held her so tight and we cried together. I shouldn't have, because my crying was a dead giveaway to her that what just happened was BAD. She couldn't have been under water for more than 5 seconds, and I'm not sure how she got there unless she just slipped, but it scared the living shit out of me. I pulled myself together, she recovered pretty quickly, in fact she was laughing as I was getting her dressed. It happened to be close enough to her nap time that I laid her down (after I knew for a fact she was okay) and went to my room and lost it.

The part that really bothers me is that something similar happened to me when I was 3. I don't remember much about my early years, but I remember this day like it was yesterday. I even remember what color my outfit was. We were getting ready to leave the pool for the day, and I was walking around the outside ledge waiting for my mom. My dad was with me, close by, but I slipped and fell straight into 9 feet of water. It wasn't 2 seconds that I was under before the lifeguards got me, but to this day my biggest fear of death is drowning. It's so bad that if there's a part of a TV show or movie that includes being submerged in water, I have to turn it off to avoid being thrown into a panic. The shows where they teach you how to escape if your car were to run into water are tattooed in the back of my brain. It's also unfortunately led me to be claustrophobic. Not bad enough that it controls my life, but makes me fearful nevertheless. I'm the girl that always knows where the exit is wherever we are, bar, restaurant, sporting event, hotel...yep I'm THAT girl.

I do think she's young enough and it's not going to have any lasting effect on her, and I even put her back in that bathtub the following day and all was fine, and I did not get up to pee this time.

On a lighter note, and since I'm so bad at posting, some pics from the following days.

Not really sure what she's doing here, but she looks damn cute doing it.

At the Blue/White Scrimmage Football Game today. We stayed all of 45 minutes and it was enough to let me know that she won't be attending any football games, this year at least.

One of many days spent at the park. God I love the park. Hours and hours of play = tired, tired child. Yes I realize she looks drunk in this pic, it's a phone pic and therefore not the greatest.

This ones another shot from my phone so again not the best but I took her to my best friends son's T-Ball game and she LOVED it. Here she is with my best friends other little boy, they sat here for at least an hour straight. I was in shock.