Water Baby

Sydney and I have taken to going to the neighborhood pool every day. In a few weeks, we're scheduled for swim lessons, but in the meantime, we're still enjoying hanging out at the pool. She can hang on to the side by herself for a minute or so, go up and down the steps, and occasionally, she can manage enough co-ordination to kick her legs while I'm holding her. She likes to jump into the pool while holding my hands, she likes to lunge towards me from the steps, knowing that I will catch her, and she likes to go from my arms to the side and back again. Her other favorite activities are dunking her face into the water and splashing vigorously.

She is starting to frighten me a little bit with her boldness. Several times she has either lunged for me, or moved off of the wall to me before I was ready and she has gone completely underwater before I could grab her. Each time, she spurts out some water and then goes right back to what she was doing. Apparently that natural "I just swallowed some water, it didn't feel good, I should stop doing that" algorithm is not quite clicking with her. On the one hand, I am so proud of my resilient, brave water baby. On the other hand, my eyes are starting to water at the pool because I'm almost too scared to take my eyes off of her long enough to blink (okay, slight exaggeration, but you get the idea).

In fact, today we had to fill out our first accident report. Sydney was hanging onto the side, putting her face into the water when all of a sudden, she started to cry. I wondered if she had bumped her head or nose into the side (since obviously taking in some water wasn't the sort of thing that upset her). Sure enough, after looking over her face, I saw a trickle of blood coming out of her mouth. She had either bumped her lip against the side of the pool, or bumped her chin, biting into her lip or cheek. So, we got out of the pool and went over to the gaggle of teenage lifeguards hanging out in the shade and asked for some gauze (by which point Sydney was done crying and was pulling away from me, ready to go swim again). One lifeguard went to get the gauze (a process which took just long enough for me to be grateful we weren't having an actual emergency) while another took Sydney's name for the accident report. I think the paper work was more trouble than getting the gauze or Sydney's actual injury.

All in all, though, we are having a great time at the pool. Even though she scares me some, I try to remember that her life will be so limited if every time she triggers my super sensitive worry-meter I make her stop what she's doing. And now that I know she likes to move around in the water (as opposed to being held the entire time), I'll be getting her a life jacket, or at least some floaties to make the experience a little safer.