To judge from the very serious, quiet baby in the arms of the swimming instructor at the Y, I could honestly say that Lauren was clearly having the time of her life. She took the entire experience in quietly, mesmerized, calm.
I knew that she was happy because she was so serious. Two seconds before I had been trying to console an angry and frustrated baby who didn't seem to understand that she could not simply dive into the pool like her sister. In earlier lessons she had been content to remain on the edge of the pool and splash, but today she was having none of that. It was time for her to learn to swim too, thank you very much.
The instructor noticed my struggle and offered to take her into the water. Neither of us knew what that would lead to... stranger anxiety? Fear of the water? ...but what we got was the calm, serious, content 9 month old who has finally gotten her way.
Lauren has always been this way, pushing us into things before we are fully ready for her to experience them, basically leading us to her next big developmental milestone instead of the other way around. Whether this is because she is eager, or we are forgetful of when these things occur, or a little bit of both, we have often had these episode of extreme frustration and unhappiness on her part and a sudden giving in on our part, only to realize that the thing she was asking to do was not beyond her comprehension at all.
The baby looked awful small in the big Olympic sized pool. It was a small thing, in the scheme of things. But to Lauren her first swim was another stride towards independence. And it's a long road indeed.
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