My son
has a friendship with water that started where else but in the bathtub. From
the moment he could sit up on his own he became a slippery bundle of laughter
and splashes. Sharks, turtles, and a rubber ducky taught him to squirt Mommy
even though she scowled. The first time he wiggled on his tummy in the tub, shouts
of "Daddy! I'm swimming!" echoed around the bathroom. When Daddy came
in to see, the water sprite shrieked, “I got you!” and soaked Daddy's pants. The
joy of staying wet means getting out of the bath after "two more
minutes!" turns into five, and the shark and the boat have time to squirt
the wall again. When the water starts to gurgle down the drain I hear,
"Where it going?" and always wonder if I should say, "To the
ocean."
Summer vacations at the coast gave him new water words: beach, crash, and wave. He liked
to yell, “Throw it, Daddy!” and watch his daddy throw rocks and shells into the
ocean to make them splunk and disappear. From his first summer visit at age
one, to the latest at age three, he’s been fascinated with the ocean. I imagine
he dreams of whales when we leave the window open at night to hear the aquatic
lullaby. Sand in his diaper, wind, cloudy skies—nothing keeps him from
crawling, tottering, and running in the sand to touch the water of the big,
blue sea. At home when we are far from any ocean—landlocked, dusty, and dry—my
son asks to “drive really fast” to get there.
Without
an ocean we settle for dancing in occasional rainstorms, wading in the backyard
pool, and playing Pooh Sticks with pinecones racing through the culvert under
our favorite path. When summer storms flood our street, my son collects sticks,
pinecones, acorns, and leaves—his mini gondolas to navigate the raindrop river.
The moment he notices the water out the window he begs to march into it. The
big kids slosh their galoshes up and down the curb and my son follows. His friend
across the street comes to wade and chase and scream too. They don't mind the wet
clothes and cold fingers. When it hasn’t rained for days and the sun screams
heat on our heads, we set out the pool and have stick-boat races. Water cannot
sit idle at our house.
During
the winter, bath time becomes my son’s main way to keep wet. Sometimes it just
isn’t enough. One night last winter my son, settled into bed, stretched an open
hand up over his head in the dim light. He turned it back and forth, looking it
over as if for the first time. He began to talk about the water-spraying
elephant statues at the zoo. "I want to get my sweeve wet at
efulents," my boy whispered. "Wait for summer," I told him. I
pictured the fun he would have as a little efulent, trumpeting water over his
back.
This
summer I decided my son needed more water than could fill a tub or wading pool.
My husband and I don’t swim, but we want our son to learn, so I signed him up
for a two-week parent/child swimming class. I thought he’d take to it like a
whale, diving and spouting water all over me. We visited the pool before
lessons started, to let him explore. He loved it, bravely going in as deep as
his waist, laughing and splashing just as I had guessed he would. But when
lessons began a few weeks later, he showed me quite fiercely that they were not
according to his terms. I feared I would scare the love of water out of him,
and he would dry up. Each day we struggled into the swim clothes while I
prepped him for swimming with little mantras of “I’m so proud of you for
trying!” and “You are so brave!” My husband even bribed him with ice cream.
Fortunately, he always smiled at some point in each lesson, always went in the
water of his own free will, and always made progress. He stayed friends with
water, and I think I see signs of a bold swimmer yet.
Just when I thought our water days were at an end for the
season, I found myself saying yes to a family-floating adventure down the Boise
River. My husband invited me to go along with some friends, thinking I’d want
to get a sitter for our son. It was too last-minute to get someone to watch
him, so I worriedly imagined us huddled in our raft in the middle of the river
with our son screaming to go home. Would he get scared or would he love it? But
how could I have doubted our water-obsessed child! Clad in a lifejacket, he
clawed his way over the side of the raft time after time, wanting to dangle in
the water while I held him by his armpits. And the only screams of the two-hour
float were exuberant joy with many a “WHOA!” as we faced the few small rapids. Even
when his friend showed fear, my son only wanted more water to fill the boat.
Lately,
when we can’t get outside to dance in the rain, go to the river, or pull out
the wading pool, my son delights in the water of the kitchen sink. He drags a
chair, scraping across the floor, and parks it in front of the sink where he
spends time filling and dumping cups and bowls of water. As I sit here writing
he exclaims, “Mommy, there’s a lot of dishes to do!” He may not always want to
do the dishes, but I have no doubt we’ll be chasing water for many years to
come.
