Soulless

Today, with his mother and father at his side, my baby dipped his whole body in a lake, for just thirty seconds total (maybe five different times)--but he loved it. He was scared, almost protesting in fear--but we could tell he was terribly excited about the whole thing as well. You could hear it in his half-nervous, half-gleeful exclamations: "Huh HUH, Huh!" is my weak approximation of the sound he was making. I felt his little heart pounding in his chest as I handed him off to his father.

We were damn proud of him. And I'm questioning the whole approach of the swim school to which I've been taking him, a total of maybe four times now. The atmosphere there can't help but be chaotic, what with at least twenty kids splashing around in the pool at any given time and at least three or four classes going on simultaneously in the same small space. The instructors at the school have told me repeatedly that it's normal for some toddlers to scream and cry during their first lessons--and that by the third or fourth lesson they almost always calm down. My boy has started to calm down--but he also shows almost no signs that he's enjoying the whole process.

I think that a toddler making a face and complaining vociferously about something usually has a point. And I'm probably going to discontinue the swim classes. They seem soulless and dull to me; swimming should be anything but that.