Pride Goeth before the fall

Monday, January 21, 2008

Yes, a re-print from my first year of blogging friends. I am trying to craft my comp questions and am "interviewing" for something to be revealed (hopefully) later. But this still makes me laugh....

And now, in the dead of winter, I give you a summer story.

We live on a lake. A lovely, pristine lake. One of the reasons I have stayed here in this small cottage for eleven years has been for the love of this lake.

Long before we had a child, I adored laying about in the lake. I would go out, tether my inner tube to a rock and lay there reading trashy novels. I am soothed by water.

My husband, a child of inner city Detroit, does not hold the same affection for the water. He views the lake as a "workout" opportunity. He swims, when he deigns to come to the water, with purpose. He does not relax in the water.

When pregnant, I swam twice a week. I was wildly proud of my swimming class. Truth be told, we were a bunch of heavily pregnant women floating in 85 degree water and doing very low impact activity. The joy in this activity was in the weightlessness of my belly. Emily would grow very still and quiet when I swam. I suspect she was a bit startled that I was flipping and flopping around at such unusual angles. I swam the day before I gave birth.

I was eager to get Emily into the water after she was born. Having a May birthday, I thought this gave me a lovely opportunity to introduce her to the lake when the warmth of July hit us full force. My plan, however, was not Emily's plan during the first year. She screamed like a banshee every time I touched her foot to the water.

This has changed. She is a water baby and an incredible swimmer. At seven, she is confident and comfortable in the water. I float on my noodles and she flips around me like a playful otter.

This August, I decided to show her a few of Mom's water abilities. In my day, I had some skillz.

I started with the underwater handstand. Hands down, legs up, legs straight and together and down.

OOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Emily and the neighbor boy were duly impressed. "Do it again, Mom" said Emily, with a voice full of impressed awe.

I did. I added variations to the additional accolades of the neighbor boy and Emily.

I was feeling good. I was 35 and still able to pull off some water acrobatics.

There was a split second when I searched my mind for any other impressive water tricks I could pull out for this admiring audience. Ahhh, I thought, I 've got one.

Me: "Wanna see my back flip?"

Fatal words, friends, fatal words.

With the admiring stares of these two children, I prepared myself for my piece de resistance.

I raised my arms, and made a big show of centering myself. Then I pushed off and flung myself backwards.

A split second before my face hit the sand, I realized that this was a critical oversight on my part. I was dealing with a whole different body mass than the last documented time I had performed this particular stunt. I had sizable developments in the breast area with which to contend.

Time slowed as my face grated through the sand and my brain connected with the searing pain coursing through my face.

I emerged from the lake bottom, to the stunned faces of my previously enthusiastic audience.

Sand had parted my hair. I was bleeding from one side of my nose. The other side was completely impacted with sand. I had sand in my mouth, that I was sputtering out as I came up.

But the crowning glory of this scene was my bathing suit top. It had completely FILLED with sand and was hanging down to my belly, exposing about 96% of my sand covered bosom to the crowd.

It took me a few seconds to realize that I was showing the neighbor boy far more than he had bargained on seeing. I then dropped to my neck in the water, began dancing around trying to stuff the "girls" back into their LL Bean top, shake out the accumulated sand from my suit and blow the core of sand that had developed in my left nostril.

The two children were completely silent. My boobs had rendered them speechless, and not in a good way.

A few minutes later, the boy says, "It's a little shallow here to do that, don't you think?"

Yes sir, thanks for the heads up. Now I will retreat to my Meme coverup and go sit on the side of the water like people my age should. Lesson learned. There is a time to retire the backflip.

6 Baleful Regards:

mamatulip said...

I think this is one of the first posts of yours I ever read. Did you post a picture with it at the time?

Anonymous said...

I'm so sorry I laughed out loud at your pain and humiliation after I read this. I even startled my toddler when I laughed.

Anonymous said...

I loved this story when I first read it and it's a classic timeless piece. I cannot wait for the post of the workmen to resurface!

theotherbear said...

I could almost feel that myself.
It sounds like the time I tried to do a backflip off a jetty the way I did as a kid. I am just not designed to do that any more.

Jaelithe said...

An oldie but a goodie.

Feral Mom said...

Classic Dawn post--I missed this one the first time, so it was fun to read it again here. My daughters asked me "why you laughing at the computer, Mama?" to which I could give no satisfactory response. I tried for honesty. "A mommy falling down, sweetie."

"That IS funny," they both agreed.

 
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