Earlier tonight my son drank water from the kiddie pool in our backyard. Let me repeat myself. My son drank the water from the kiddie pool in my backyard tonight. Before I go any further, allow me to explain he was well cared for today. He was not suffering from lack of attention, dehydration or malnutrition. At the time of the incident he had drank plenty of clean water, eaten many healthy snacks and two of three meals for the day.
I have been told that many kids have had a drink of pool water, or worse, and survived. That does not change a thing. I am still beside myself. It is not only upsetting because my son drank water that he had been playing all day, but due in part to the conversation we had shortly after the incident. Allow me to share an excerpt as follows:
Mommy asks, “Why did you put water from the pool in your mouth?”
Child’s reply, “Because you told me not to.”
Mommy, (complete with feeling of brain exploding), “Because I told you NOT you, you decided to drink pool water?”
The child replied with a tentative look. “Yes.”
I was bewildered, sad, worried he would get sick and ANGRY all at the same time. I am typing while my son eats his dinner. My brain craves to have a discussion with an adult version of my preschooler right now. “What on Earth were you thinking?” The logical part of my brain understands that kids must test boundaries and experiment, but what is the right response when they do something wrong ON PURPOSE? My son is no stranger to time out, but I usually understand his behavior. This act seemed to be ludicrous and purposeless to me.
I realized standing next to the pool with the sun beating down and my last nerve in danger of frying that I was at a parenting inflection point. Instincts were firing off commands to my brain as I desperately clutched for a clue. I silently sorted through my thoughts one by one:
Of course, the first instinct was to scream. Quickly passed over that one. What good would it do?
The second instinct was to take a few seconds to mentally kick myself for all the nights I did not let him cry himself to sleep. I did not want him to know an extra moment’s sadness. Funny where your brain goes, isn’t it?
The third instinct was to punish. Time out? Send him to his room without dinner? Cancel the next Disney trip?
Nothing felt right. After a few silent moments, the oxygen made it’s way back to my brain. I realized that although frustrating ( infuriating), this is behavior is mostly normal. What is important is to calmly explain that we are done in the pool for today and that tomorrow I expect that he will keep the water where it belongs. I think that was the right choice for me, my son, and his (inevitable) future therapist bills.
Life has moved on. Routines have taken place. Shoes in the drawer. Hat on the hook. Hands washed. Dinner prepared and eaten. My son seems to have forgotten the whole incident and I am left wondering if I made the right choice. I am strangely comforted at this moment to be a working mother. Not because I won’t miss my angel, tests and all, tomorrow. I will. That said, tomorrow at work, even if someone does something I told them not to do, they likely won’t inform me they did it just because I told them not to!
