Comma Dot Comma

The life guards at the YMCA think Abigail is the cutest thing ever. I was reporting this to Dr. G after Abigail’s swim lesson and his response was, “Oh no! She’s ALREADY drawing attention from teenage boys?” Yes, it is so. As well as from men, women, and children of all ages, since she is apparently the only baby frequenting the pool. In her infant and parent swim class, the other four children are all at least two years old and can follow instructions with some degree of success. Abi just grins and splashes a lot, and tries to dunk her face. Her instructor, a kindly woman named Mary, has offered to give her more age-appropriate private lessons after the group lesson. Today’s private lesson, though, was mostly just blowing bubbles to make her feel better after a child’s foam boogie board shot into her face. Ouch! But nothing a round of “the wheels on the bus” couldn’t solve. Abigail is a good student; she studies what the other toddlers in the pool are doing and tries to do it too, including jumping off the pool edge. Yes, my daughter who cannot yet stand up by herself wants to jump off the edge of the pool. We do sit-jumps instead, where she throws herself into the water on the count of three, and I catch her before she submerges. She could do that all day, that and drink pool water. Sometimes I feel that my main role is not to keep her from drowning but to keep her from gulping down that gross water. It’s a challenge, but worth it to be close to such joyfulness. Her instructor believes that Abigail never cries and always has a smile on her face. If Abi could live in the water that might be true.

Abigail is 10 months old today, and we celebrated with our first family swim in the backyard pool. The weather is in the 100′s every day now and we gaze longingly at the pool, waiting for the late afternoon shade to come so we can go in without the sun beating down on us. Abigail has dabbled along the first step several times, but this was her first immersion experience. I think it may have been the most fun I’ve had in a pool ever. Her dad jumped into the deep end while she and I got used to the water on our usual first step. When she saw him swimming toward her, she started to laugh and reach for him. She laughed and laughed when he finally arrived and she leapt onto him. Then she realized that she was armpit deep in chilly (well, 83 degree) water– stunned silence for a bit. She came back to me, and we did more of the Dada Swims to Abigail game, with more laughing and hugging. Then we switched to Mama Swims to Abigail.

Soon thereafter Abi was ready to do some swimming herself, so we took turns holding her torso and propelling her through the water. Dada would wait on one side of the pool and I would “swim” Abi over to him; then we’d switch. The first few times she didn’t move her body at all, though I could feel her little heart accelerating as I carried her across the pool. When she was coming to me with her dad, I could see her little face frozen in a happy, scared grin, like the kind people get at the top of the roller coaster. Each time she reached her goal she would climb on to the other parent with a screech of delight, then scramble around and point back the other way, ready to go again. Next she added a frog kick, and experimented a few times with sticking her face in the water. She’d come up gasping and blinking and then start kicking again as if to say, “Nothing to see here! Let’s get going!” Once she had assured herself that water on the face wasn’t so bad, she added her trademark double-arm hand slam to the mix. Dr. G and I laughed again and again as Abi did her butterfly swim across the pool, splashing huge waves of water up into her own face but gasping and laughing all the while. Made it to Dada! Hooray! Quick, turn around! We gotta go back the other way! (Point, point, point! Kick, kick, kick!) We were deluged in a frenzy of happy splashing for a good fifteen minutes, back and forth across the pool, until Abigail started breathing so hard from her efforts that we put an end to it. Even after we got out of the water and were cuddling and drying off, with Abigail’s feet and hands wrinkled from the water and her lip trembling from chill and excitement, she kept pointing eagerly at the pool. I think I have an inkling of how this summer is going to go.

Abigail is remarkably like a puppy. She loves to chew on things, she’s not potty trained, she slobbers constantly, and she scampers around on all fours, carrying things in her mouth. She wasn’t quite sure why I was laughing this morning when she crawled toward me with an elephant stuffed animal (thanks, Rebecca!) dangling from her mouth by its ear. Watching that elephant flop and sway as Abi made her way toward me with a big-eyed, determined expression just got to me, though I see similar feats several times a day. The mouth is her preferred method of carrying medium-sized things. Small items go in her hand, and bigger ones she crawls over so they get stuck under her torso and she can drag them along with her. Once in awhile I’ll see her do all three.

The puppyishness of Abi has inspired a possible solution to her somewhat difficult eating habits. She has developed a sign to let me know when she is done eating: she slams both hands down as hard as she can onto the high chair tray. It’s hard to miss, but even harder to believe, since she generally keeps on eating steadily until I take her out of the chair. But if I ignore the sign, she just does it more and more vehemently between bites until I let her go. I think the issue is that Miss Wiggles gets tired of the chair before she gets full. I’ve noticed how much she delights in finding bits of food left under her high chair, so I’ve taken to leaving small bowls or trays of food there or in a little nook in her play area for her to snack on. Snack she does, but step one is dumping everything out onto the floor. The floor is clean enough that I don’t mind her eating off of it, but I do get tired of picking up little bits of dried fruit and cereal puffs. What I need, I’ve decided, is some sort of permanent bowl that she can’t pick up off the floor (stick it down with poster tape, perhaps?) and that I can refill with dry food periodically. A dog dish. That would be perfect.

Well, we made it through May. I asked Dr. G. if I should keep doing this blog series and he suggested I do it “in perpetuity.” Poor Abigail, if it were so! I can imagine her as a teenager finding the blog post where she asks about the birds and the bees or the one where I discuss her bad habit of picking her nose or farting in public. Anyway, I’ll keep going for awhile, at least 3 times a week for the next few weeks.

Abigail has had two great passions yesterday and today: hugs, and outside. She is still in that fussy post-relatives mode where it seems to her like a crime against humanity to be asked to play by herself for ten minutes. The outrage! The tears! But that neediness also comes with wonderful hugs that she bestows at every opportunity, whether she is delighted to have caused one of her toys to play a song, startled by the loud bus engine going by, or simply in need of a short rest. Abigail hugs are the best. She wants every part of her body, including her feet, touching my body and she will wiggle and climb until it is so. Then she rests her head on my shoulder and clings with her arms, holding very still for sometimes up to a minute. She sighs contentedly and says, “Mama. Mama, mama.” I sigh back and say, “Abi, Abi.” Then she is off for her next adventure.

She has taken to treating me as a limousine driver, holding up her arms to be carried and then pointing imperiously where she wants to go. More often than not, it is to the front or back door. When we get close she will point at the doorknob just to make herself extra clear. If I walk away without taking her out, she becomes angry and desolate. Yesterday I left her with her dad while I took some laundry out and she came chasing after, sobbing against the french doors where I had disappeared. He thought it was separation anxiety; I thought it was because she was upset that I had gone outside without her. Sure enough, a trip out back to examine the flower beds cheered her right up. Today we did two outdoor cuddle sessions, two walks, a splash session in the pool, two examinations of the flowerbeds (squeezing the baby lemons on the tree is especially interesting), and a trip to the front yard to sit on a rock and wait for Dada to get home. The problem is that there is not anywhere for her to play outdoors. Our summer grass is extremely prickly and causes an itchy rash, while the cement is rough and gets quite hot during the day. The front yard is all gravel. Maybe I should get some mulch or something and make her a play area.