Toddler + Kiddie Pool = Danger

This shot almost cost me my younger daughter's life. While I was sitting in a chair waiting for my oldest daughter to jump so that I could take the picture at the right moment, my two-year-old was struggling under water in a pool under two feet deep.

I thought when children reach a certain age (2.6 years in my daughter's case), when they can walk, run and jump, you're pretty safe from them losing foot in water because they'll naturally find their balance back. WRONG. When that happened, we had been playing in a children's swimming pool (roughly 60 cm deep) for two hours. Both my girls had been going down a slide into the pool, swimming and splashing around and given the size of the pool (30 feet across?), they knew their way around. Even so, that did not prevent my daughter from losing balance and almost drown. I believe she tried to reach a kick board, slipped and started panicking.

When I put down the camera, I saw my little one struggling under water. I didn't realize right away she was drowning, I thought she was playing. When I did realize (two, three seconds maybe), my heart jumped. I ran there (six feet away) in no time and pulled her out of the water. She had been heavily swallowing water, her mouth and eyes wide open. She looked terrified. Poor thing, she was so scared. It took her a minute to get her breath back and then she cried and cried and cried. I felt like the worst mother on earth. I wanted to hug her forever and I kept saying "I'm sorry".

I undressed her right away and wrapped in a towel that had been sitting in the sun and was nice and warm. Then I called my mother. After I put down the receiver, I heard a small voice say: "I want to call Picky too." (Picky is my mom's name for her grandchildren) I dialed my mom's number again and my two-year-old explained how she fell into the water, how the swimming pool was scary, how she cried and how she was safe in a towel now.

I hope this will help prevent future accidents, not only to me but to other parents. Never guesstimate your child is safe in water however shallow the pool is. There's a reason why all swimming pools on earth require children be under adult supervision.