Gracie the Hero

When Grace was little I was going to write a bunch of children's books based on her daily adventures.  I was going to title them things like "Gracie the Brave" or "Gracie the Funny", etc.  I might still do it...one of these days...  Anyway, today I am going to tell you about Gracie the Hero. 
We were at swim lessons.  At the end of class, the kids had some free time.  They could jump off the diving board to the teacher or they could play in the shallow with water noodles.  Both Grace and Lucas chose to play with a noodle.  They were straddling them and riding them like a horse so the noodle was curved into a U shape under them.  They both were sort of drifting toward the middle of the pool which didn't concern me because they were both floating securely on the noodle.  Until Lucas capsized.  No worries because he still had one hand on the noodle.  Not for long because he let go of the noodle.  I tried to call to him to hold on to it still but I think he was already in a bit of a panic.  We was doing a good job trying to swim up to where he could breathe but was just in a spot where he barely could not touch.  I had Daphne in my arms and was getting ready to put her down at the same time I called the teacher's attention to Lucas' situation.  She was just helping someone to the edge that had jumped off the board and headed right toward him.  The next thing I saw was Grace.  She had been next to him the whole time and had tried to help him up unsuccessfully from her seated position on her noodle.  So she jumped off.  She got off her noodle and sank to the bottom herself, but what I could see her doing under the water was putting both her hands on her little brother's waist and trying to lift his head above the water.  I was so proud of her.  She was more worried about making sure that Lucas was okay than herself.
This whole story happened in about 10 seconds.  Maybe 15, but no more than that.  Grace's part was only about the last 3 or 4 seconds before the teacher grabbed them both and pulled them up.  I won't say I wasn't a little panicked myself but I saw the whole thing start to finish and so I saw the end coming soon enough that I knew no one was going to be hurt.

While we were eating lunch today, I called Grace a hero.  She said, "I'm not a hero, Mom" and I told her that she was because she had tried to save Lucas in the pool.  She got a big grin on her face and said, "Well, I tried to lift him up but he was just too heavy!"