At last, a Waterbaby

My husband grew up afraid of water.  Born in landlocked Ohio to parents from the hills of Kentucky, he had little exposure to oceans and lakes.  I, on the other hand, grew up half an hour from the coast, learned to swim at age 3 or 4, and spent several hours every day of every summer in a big pool that we belonged to.

Our children haven't been exposed to swimming as much as I would like.  At the college I attended, you had to pass a swim test (a lap up and back, and then treading water until you'd been in the pool for a total of 15 minutes).  Legend had it that some alum had drowned or almost drowned, and the requirement was a stipulation of a bequest to the college.  And even though it seemed kind of odd, I remember thinking that it was a good idea--that everyone should know how to swim.  

So, I've always wanted my children to learn to swim.  However, it's hard to take young children to the pool when you have more than one, especially if your spouse is water-averse himself.  I signed the girls up for swim lessons about two summers ago.  Allison Clare enjoyed the lessons but refused to put her face in the water, and thus stalled out in progress.  Gillian, who was just two at the time, did not enjoy the lessons at all.  Both of them could go underwater for a few seconds by the end of the course, but neither could really swim.  I'm hoping to try again, and every now and then I torment them by nagging them to try various things in the bathtub.

The baby, however, loves the water.  He is fascinated by it, and loves nothing more in life than to lean over the side of the tub and try to slap the surface of the bathwater when his sisters are bathing.  In fact, if he is being entertained elsewhere in the house, hears the sound of the water, and realizes that a bath is taking place, he shrieks his head off (he's a mild fellow otherwise) and screams and writhes until he gets away from whoever is cruelly holding him back.  He darts down the hall on his belly and into the bathroom, his movements silent and swift like Spiderman climbing a wall, except horizontal.  He pulls himself up on the tub and tips himself with his head bent way down into the tub--more than once I've had to catch his feet to keep him from completely diving in headfirst.  When the girls are out, I put him into the tub for a few moments, and getting him out of his clothes is the worst part of all because he is screaming the high-pitched squeal that one only hears otherwise in moments of actual pain--that's how much it hurts him to be held back from the bath.

Once he's in, he slaps the surface of the water until he makes huge splashes--I'm pretty damp by the time he decides he's had enough.  I love toweling him off then and getting his diaper and jammies onto him as he gets ready for bed--he's so sweet and happy, and he's getting really into books now.  Clare gave him Oh, the Thinks You can Think!, which was a Dr. Seuss book that I'd never heard of, and he adores it.  He slaps the pages with his palms and looks wonderingly at the book and then laughs and tips his head back to look at me to share his surprise at the pages, and then turns them and laughs again.  My sweet angel baby, lover of books and baths.