Graduation, Boys in the pool

Last night we attended the graduation program at our church school. I was operating on only three hours sleep so I was struggling to say the least. So I snuck out and laid back the seat in our little van and slept for about half an hour. It was a little hot but I had very little choice. I knew I was not going to make it or worse, that I would embarrass myself being too short tempered.
Mama told me when I got back inside that she had looked for me and found me but she did not wake me up. She said I was sleeping hard when she first found me. I really needed it. But I recovered and got back inside to help with the serving in the back of the church – punch and cake. Keeping it all cleaned up was a fulltime job, but everyone had a great time, enjoyed the fellowship and the cake. The hit was Mama’s punch; so much so that we are now going to make it for 300 during the Youth Conference. (No good deed goes unpunished.)
I missed most of the awards but my wife told me they were fun to see, especially the younger grades. It is always interesting and often embarrassing to see how the younger children act when their name is called to go in front of people.
We are watching three young boys today. Our normal charge is home with her mama today. Since it was a hot day swimming was on the agenda and the boys were excited about it. Once the pool opened for the day, we had to break them away from the Wii – which took a few minutes, since you cannot stop in the middle of a game.
Once at the pool they were totally into it. We started with the kiddy pool (one foot deep). I showed the older two – seven year-old twins – the three foot section. They were thrilled that they could stand and move around with the water coming up to their lower chest area. I showed them the other areas of the pool that are the same depth and they moved around quickly. Adding a float for the younger brother gave all three a sense of confidence and from there on they owned most of the pool.
After about an hour they were getting out, warming up and then getting back in. The water was still too cold for them but they did not want to get out for good. When the youngest brother could no longer keep his teeth from chattering we called it quits, got changed, went out for lunch and took a two hour nap when we got home.
It reminded me of how easily we end up doing things that we know we will regret but we seem unable to stop ourselves at the time. As in the case of these young ones, there is someone watching over us too. Also, as with these, we need to be listening and responsive.