We went with some friends to their lake house for Independence Day. (Yes, I’m a little behind in my blogging…) Thankfully, it was not a Joey-style July 4th.

Isabella’s first question upon hearing the news was, “Am I going to throw up?” I had totally forgotten, but the last time we went to the lake, she had gotten sick all over the bed. I had driven her home early that morning, equipped only with a plastic bag to catch the pink stuff that she kept spewing -- hot dogs are not pretty on the rebound. Unfortunately, my baggie had a slight hole in it, and, well, I’ll spare you the rest of the details, though I couldn’t stand to leave out the pink hot dog vomit part, which, in the sterile safety of hindsight, is pretty funny.

But not funny to Isabella. She remembered it exactly like it was, and I don’t blame her for being worried. In her mind, she made the association: lake = vomit. It’s a similar connection that she made at the doctor’s office: doctor = shots. We assured her that no, she wouldn’t throw up just because we were going to the lake (and I prayed that she actually wouldn’t throw up else we’d never get her back to the lake, and worse, she might not trust us any more).

I was excited about going, but not too excited. I love going out there, but I always have this humongous stressful mission at the front and center of my mind: DON’T LET THE KIDS DROWN. My mind is in constant motion as to ways they could drown, however unlikely -- freak lightning strike on a clear day, run-away jet-ski, getting foot tangled in seaweed, hit head on dock, rabid duck attack, etc. And that’s not even counting the multitude of ways to die while being dragged behind a boat on an innertube -- rope around neck, shallow water tree stump in eye, your basic super-crash neck-snap, … I think you get it by now. Feel free to come up with a few of your own; I’ll add those to my list.

Our friends had a huge inflated innertube-with-a-trampoline-middle thing tied to the dock that you could jump on and sort of bounce. While Madeline and her friend bounced and splashed, laughing and having fun, I stood on the dock with life-jacketed Isabella, wondering how to spot brain-eating amoebas (like the ones that got a few guys a few months back) and how hard it would be to bounce off of the side of the big innertube and get rebounded into the metal bolts sticking out of the side of the dock.

Finally I conquered my irrational fears and we got in and had a great time. The worst thing to happen (with the exception of my new overly-large swimsuit falling down when I came out of the water, momentarily blinding Carrie) was that we all got skinned elbows and knees from jumping on that trampoline thing -- which totally rocked by the way (the trampoline part rocked I mean, not the skin peeling off part). Isabella’s favorite activity was to push me and the other girls off to tumble into the water.

We went out in the boat later, and Isabella got in my lap and we rode in an innertube together. I was terrified, knowing that a fall could hurt her (she’s got pretty low muscle tone) but not wanting to be too overprotective. I did make the mistake at one point of holding onto her with both hands as we went over a wave, leaving 2 – 2 = 0 hands to hold onto the tube. The tube kept going; we did too, at least until we came down out of the air and hit the water, tumbling hard. I came up laughing in a somewhat maniacal “hahahaha-wasn’t-that-so-fun” laugh, looking at her. I was shocked to see that she was smiling, and I was even more shocked when she said, “Can we go again?”

Later, we got to see a friendly brown duck giving a grumpy head-pecking green-headed duck a raucous swimming piggyback ride. Nothing to see here, kids! Let’s let them play in peace. (By the way, I later quacked at Carrie with a nudge-nudge and she gave me a shove-shove, so my “make like a duck” move is out.)

We almost did have a tragedy when Isabella popped up from a nap in Carrie’s lap on a swinging bench. “My stomach is bubbly!” Translation: “I’m going to throw up! Why did you lie to me? I hate the lake!” Luckily, she didn’t. We think she just got motion sick while swinging. She’s her daddy’s girl.

Isabella (and Madeline and friend too, for that matter) worked so hard that I began to look at it like therapy. It certainly would build strength with all that swimming and climbing and jumping. So, lake time is therapeutic, and therapy is tax-deductible, right? Ergo, if I buy a lake house, I can deduct it on my taxes! Right?

That “buy” part might be a hurdle, though. Can anyone spot me a few hundred thousand?