Bob, bob, bobbing along

Anonybabe can swim, y'all! I mean, she doggy paddles with a YMCA floaty snapped around her tummy, but whatever. She wiggles free from me in the pool and can make her way from one side to the other, squealing with glee, and doing that odd jerky erect neck posture that people who are trying to keep their heads well above the water use. I can't believe it.

It's odd, Anonybabe is the most cautious toddler you'll ever meet. She waited until 18 months to start walking, and then would put her hands down to balance herself if she so much as crossed a doorjamb. She pauses for every crack in the sidewalk. She asked to be picked up and carried at every stairway. So it was shocking to take her into a swimming pool for the first time and have her struggle to swim alone. She would kick and squirm and flail every appendage in an attempt at freedom. She was going for it. She was annoyed by my hands under her pits, my knee placed under her feet so she'd have a place to stand. Last time we went to the pool I tried letting go. Lo and behold, she didn't much need me around. I still hovered, of freaking course, but didn't really touch.

I suppose this shores up the theory that Anonybabe has some undeveloped muscles somewhere that make it hard for her to run, jump, play, climb...on dry land. She has no such hang-ups in the water. Perhaps this lets her be her uninhibited self a little bit.

Funny, I do like being in water, but didn't get around to it much at all in my adult life. But when I was pregnant with Anonybabe, and especially towards the end of the pregnancy, I was in the pool as much as possible. I had a little parasite inside willing me to go, to get a sweet release from gravity, to employ a wet pillow to muffle the noises of the world, to snatch those breath-long segments of isolation.

It was beautiful, and a little sad, to see her gathering these things for herself.