Lost in a life jacket.

We have been taking Makily to Wild Waters almost every weekend the last month or so. SHE LOVES IT. The child is a water baby if I ever saw one.

A few weekends ago out of no where they were making it mandatory for ALL kids under a certain height to wear a life vest whether they were with their parents or not. When they told us this rule I was a little annoyed. Makily only has so much strength as it is and putting a life jacket on her was going to make it even more awkward for her. I did it anyway hoping she would get used to it. Well after about 10 minutes in their pool area I realized, she wasn't going for it. It also didn't help that they had no infant sized vests available and we had her in a size that really was too big for her.

So we got out of that pool and went over to the wave pool. It has a zero entry area and we like to sit at the "shoreline" of it with her. Well we get there and they are enforcing the life jacket rule there too.

I almost wanted to cry.

Playing in the water and swimming is one of the very few things Makily ENJOYS doing. She laughs and giggles and is really at peace in the water. Due to all her medical problems and hypotonia she can't just play like a typical child, her body just doesn't work that way. All you special needs parents out there know that when you find something that your kid likes and responds well to, it's AMAZING! I found myself getting sad that we had finally found something that made her sooo happy and now because of their new rule Makily couldn't enjoy herself. I wanted to leave right then and there because I felt like the entire day was ruined. Then I thought "heck no, they are going to make an exception for this kid, SHE DESERVES IT!"

I went up to the lifeguard (who was all of like 16) and said "My child cannot walk, crawl or get away from me, she hates the life jacket and I won't put it back on her, if I promise to sit at the edge here can I please take her in". She told me that I couldn't. It was their new policy. I asked her what I should do then and explained that Makily WAS disabled and she could barely move in the jackets they provided us. She reiterated that SHE HAD TO WEAR it BUT that she could get the manager for me to speak to.

I could feel my inner voice slowly whispering in my ear. The voice that comes from the darkest most negative parts of my brain. It's that voice that speaks to me when something like this is happening, trying to convince me to be sad. I fight these thoughts more times than I like to admit. This time the voice was saying:

"If Makily wasn't disabled you wouldn't have to be fighting about this, she would be running and splashing around right now, why do you even try?"

I quickly refused to listen to this little voice in my head and was determined to have a good day and be positive.

The manager came and I explained our story once again for him. I used lots of BIG MEDICAL WORDS so as to make myself sound smarter than I really am in the hopes that this would somehow intimidate him. Ha Ha. I told him Makily couldn't walk or crawl and had hypotonia which made it almost impossible for her to move with this huge jacket on that went all the way past her ears. Seriously all you could see was her big cheeks all squished up and two little piggy tails sticking out the top of this thing. He was very nice and explained that A DIFFERENT water park in CA had 9 drownings this season and so they had initiated this rule in Ocala (don't ask me why). I told him I understood but it didn't work for us. He agreed and said that since our case was "extreme" he would let us take her in without it, as long as I held onto the life jacket.

I was elated!

So Makily, Allen and I sat at the edge of the water playing "splishy splash". She laughed and giggled, I kept the toddler life jacket hooked around my arm.

It's amazing the things I will do and complain about now for this kid.

**Disclaimer: I do not have schizophrenia and I don't actually hear voices.**