Baby takes a swim
August 2, 2000
I received a formal invitation to watch my seven-month-old granddaughter take a first swim. My daughter-in-law knows that I will be as thrilled to do this as if I had been invited to Buckingham Palace for high tea. Visiting from California, she must dole out each precious moment between two Springville grandmas, and this special treat happens to be at the other grandma’s house.
I race to finish my morning work so that, if necessary, I will have hours to watch this magical creature perform impossible feats. I don’t take my camera because I don’t want to take pictures now, my first time watching. I’m afraid to spoil this moment. I want to enjoy every second this first time.
When I arrive, our princess is decked out in a stretchy pink bathing suit that makes her chubby body look like a “love sausage.” My hand itch to hold her and I’m allowed to carry her outside to the waiting plastic pool filled with warmed water. We all stand around watching, all our attention glued to baby and water, and I place her in the pool as if she was a goddess and we her slavish acolytes.
She easily rises to the occasion.
Her baby arms start to flail, tentatively at first. She splashes soft splashes as her skin adjusts to the outdoor air and the feel of the water. Her first experimental efforts give way as she begins to understand how to do this. Soon her fists begin to move faster and faster and whole plumes of water fly into the air, splashing into her face and eyes, covering the ground with an ocean of displaced droplets.
I sit happily in the water on the grass, my cotton pants slowly soaking up the sides of my legs. Blissfully rapt, for al I know I could be drowning. She stops, looks up at us and smiles. We are stolen from our senses. We laugh, exclaiming at he prowess, applauding her every effort as she becomes more and more energetic.
She explores the fish print on the plastic side of the pool. We wonder at her perspicacity. She pinches and makes the plastic squeak. She sucks a drop or two from the sides, but soon she’s back to splashing. She’s become serious, intent. She sees a problem here that we don’t see, that needs to be explored and solved. Faster and faster, harder and harder her hands and fists attack the water, her whole being centered on this moment, this pool, this water.
Soon, however, we’re out of water. Our fifteen minutes are up; its time to go inside; that party’s over. I wrap her in a towel and she fixes me with her wide blue eyes, round baby arms and soft baby skin covered with tiny sparkles.
We feel honored to know someone so able to provide this level of experience. We feel we’ve witnessed some special rite that we’re somehow undeserving to witness. How will we endure? How will we be able to bear it when she begins to crawl and takes her first steps? Already we’ve been almost overcome by “sitting” and “rolling over” and now this splashing dervish, able to move whole gallons of water with the whisk of her fists.
Able to hold a group of willing adults a captive audience, sitting in the grass on a perfect sunny summer morning, watching a baby in a blue plastic swimming pool covered with pink and yellow fish.
I received a formal invitation to watch my seven-month-old granddaughter take a first swim. My daughter-in-law knows that I will be as thrilled to do this as if I had been invited to Buckingham Palace for high tea. Visiting from California, she must dole out each precious moment between two Springville grandmas, and this special treat happens to be at the other grandma’s house.
I race to finish my morning work so that, if necessary, I will have hours to watch this magical creature perform impossible feats. I don’t take my camera because I don’t want to take pictures now, my first time watching. I’m afraid to spoil this moment. I want to enjoy every second this first time.
When I arrive, our princess is decked out in a stretchy pink bathing suit that makes her chubby body look like a “love sausage.” My hand itch to hold her and I’m allowed to carry her outside to the waiting plastic pool filled with warmed water. We all stand around watching, all our attention glued to baby and water, and I place her in the pool as if she was a goddess and we her slavish acolytes.
She easily rises to the occasion.
Her baby arms start to flail, tentatively at first. She splashes soft splashes as her skin adjusts to the outdoor air and the feel of the water. Her first experimental efforts give way as she begins to understand how to do this. Soon her fists begin to move faster and faster and whole plumes of water fly into the air, splashing into her face and eyes, covering the ground with an ocean of displaced droplets.
I sit happily in the water on the grass, my cotton pants slowly soaking up the sides of my legs. Blissfully rapt, for al I know I could be drowning. She stops, looks up at us and smiles. We are stolen from our senses. We laugh, exclaiming at he prowess, applauding her every effort as she becomes more and more energetic.
She explores the fish print on the plastic side of the pool. We wonder at her perspicacity. She pinches and makes the plastic squeak. She sucks a drop or two from the sides, but soon she’s back to splashing. She’s become serious, intent. She sees a problem here that we don’t see, that needs to be explored and solved. Faster and faster, harder and harder her hands and fists attack the water, her whole being centered on this moment, this pool, this water.
Soon, however, we’re out of water. Our fifteen minutes are up; its time to go inside; that party’s over. I wrap her in a towel and she fixes me with her wide blue eyes, round baby arms and soft baby skin covered with tiny sparkles.
We feel honored to know someone so able to provide this level of experience. We feel we’ve witnessed some special rite that we’re somehow undeserving to witness. How will we endure? How will we be able to bear it when she begins to crawl and takes her first steps? Already we’ve been almost overcome by “sitting” and “rolling over” and now this splashing dervish, able to move whole gallons of water with the whisk of her fists.
Able to hold a group of willing adults a captive audience, sitting in the grass on a perfect sunny summer morning, watching a baby in a blue plastic swimming pool covered with pink and yellow fish.
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