I took Gracie swimming yesterday. It was a chilly day (breeze coming in from the North) and Chicago’s park district outdoor pools don’t open until mid-June anyway, but I found an indoor pool that was open on Sunday. I packed the pool bag, said a little “thank you” that I wouldn’t have to deal with sunscreen and put on my most alluring one-piece. Motherhood: so fancy.
As soon as we got in the water Gracie went crazy, splashing and kicking. She clearly wanted to swim, so I held her up while she splashed along. At one point I let her drop just an inch or so, trying to let her get a feel for the water. At that exact moment someone else jumped in and she got a big faceful of water. She didn’t cry but I could tell she was scared, the way she clung to me. I don’t want swimming to be scary so we got out, walked along the side a little and put her new life jacket on. We got back in and practiced floating, we splashed, she sat on the edge and observed, she splashed some more. For the most part she loved it, but a few times she got scared again, clinging to me, yanking my suit, using her feet to scramble up my torso. Each time I’d hold her up high and take her to the side, letting her calm down. After a few minutes she’d perk back up and get back in, kicking and splashing happily. After about 30 minutes she began to sign and say “All done, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye”. I took that as our cue to dry off and head home. Later we told B that we’d been swimming, which she says “mmmingmmingmmming” all together.
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Growing up we spent a lot of time swimming. In Virginia our neighborhood had an association pool and I think my brother and I begged my parents to take us every single day. We rode our bikes over, Mom carrying the big pool bag, and we’d swim for so long my eyes would start to get swollen from the chlorine. At some point my Mom bought old fashioned zinc sunscreen, the kind you spread on your nose and it makes it turn white. This sunscreen was colored, a blue tube and a yellow tube. More than once I smeared it all together and rubbed it all over my entire face, Elpheba-style. Kids are so weird.
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While also in Virginia my friends and I started an “Enviornment Club” with the obvious goal of saving the environment. We met regularly, someone took minutes on that elementary school lined paper with the dashed lines in between the regular lines to help you make uppercase and lowercase letters. I was eventually kicked out of the Enviornment Club for the egregious sin of constructing newspaper pirate hats for the members, which according to the other members (my best friends) was wasteful and BAD FOR THE ENVIORNMENT because they did not WANT hats. Arguably some unsound logic, but nonetheless. However, prior to my rude impeachment (I think the parents said they had to let me back in and we recycled the hats?) we decided our neighborhood pool needed some recycling bins to account for the hundreds of Coke cans that were tossed every day in the regular garbage. We, crusaders of the enviornment, were horrified at the metal waste going into the landfills. So we had some fundraisers (bake sales? raiding our piggy banks? our parents actually paid it and I have zero memory of this?) and bought a huge recycling bin and wrote a letter to the association asking if we could be in charge of the recycling. We set the bin up and every so often Dad and I would get up early, pick up my friends (no worries, we lived on the same street, we were not wasting gas) and we’d go collect the cans and take them to the recycling center. I’m told the pool still has recycling! Way to go Environment Club…even if your members were little dictators.
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This fall I’m going to take swim lessons with Gracie. I’m a little disappointed she took that faceful of water in the midst of her first time in, but I’m hopeful that next time we go she forgets about the scary part. Swim lessons should be helpful, I was disappointed that she wasn’t quite old enough for the summer session through the Chicago Park District, but never fear, we will be there come fall (indoor pool). In the meantime I think we need a floaty ring for her, something a little less cumbersome than the life vest but that keeps her nice and upright while we play. I’m hopeful the pool becomes a fun activity, something she loves as much as I did when I was a kid. We drove across the country 3 times growing up and one of the highlights was staying at a hotel with a pool and getting swim at the end of the day of driving. I can’t wait to take her “mmmingmmingmmming” again.
