And then in a show of really spectacular timing, our washing machine broke. It's not good when it smells like it's on fire during the spin cycle and leaves all these weird scorchy-looking brown spots all over your sheets and towels. Fixing our eight-year-old machine would have cost about twelve cents less than the cost of a shiny new one, so we got to go shopping. (The dryer, thankfully, is fine, although it needed a good cleaning. The guy who came out to service it cheerfully reported that we're lucky we didn't burn down our house.)
In happier news, my little girl had her very first swimming lesson today. We've never had her in "real" lessons before; I didn't really think she was ready last summer. Last summer she was just starting to be okay with sitting on a brightly colored carpet all by herself in her Kindermusik class, and she loved that, but I thought it would be pushing our luck to expect her to jump in a swimming pool all by herself. (In hindsight, she might have done just fine, but live and learn.) She's been excited for swimming lessons. She's been in gymnastics for the past several months, which has been great in terms of getting her used to listening to coaches and interacting with lots of different kids. I'm always nearby, watching, but I'm in the background.
She was shy at first, of course. We lined up by the pool, and I guided her into her little class group. I prodded her to follow her teacher, and then I stepped back and let her go. She didn't look back at me, and the next thing I knew, she was jumping right into the pool. By herself. Within minutes she was blowing bubbles, hanging on to the side of the pool to practice her kicks, and putting her face in the water. She allowed her teacher to pull her around the pool away from the side as she continued to practice her kicking and her back floats. She actually leaned back far enough in the water to get her hair completely wet.
She glanced over at me a few times and we exchanged secret little waves. I tried to control my beaming so I wouldn't completely embarrass her. She's so funnily shy about showing her excitement in public -- she goes so far as to actually reach up and pull her cheeks down when she's really tickled, like she doesn't want the world to see how much she's smiling. (And when her smile is just too big to be contained and it comes bursting through anyway -- well, it's beautiful, and impossible not to feel that smile all the way to your own toes.)
Mostly, though, I just watched, and she was so absorbed in kicking and bouncing in the water that she wasn't looking over at me all that much. The thirty-minute lesson flew by. Afterwards she climbed out of the pool like it was old hat already, shimmied over to me, and said, "I'm getting cold -- can I please have my towel?"
Sometimes I feel like every triumph I have ever experienced in my life culminates in these little moments -- watching my daughter jump into a swimming pool by herself, or watching her glide effortlessly across a balance beam in gymnastics class when four months ago she was so tentative. Or cooking dinner while she colors and hearing her suddenly announce, "Hey, Mommy, look -- I made a letter Q." Or hearing my son say a world for the first time. Watching him as he grins and starts to dance when he hears music. Listening to my children laughing together in the next room, knowing they are sharing something that they initiated without my prompting. Some of these moments are obvious (Suzannah's first swimming lesson is a pretty big one), but so many of them are so ordinary. One of the things I really try to do, though, is stay present enough to notice them -- to notice all the little ways in which my children discover the world and all the things they can do in it. It gives me a little thrill in my stomach and a swell in my heart that feels so much bigger than anything I've ever managed to do myself. I can't take credit for any of this, for what they do, but I can hopefully be in the moment with them and let them know that they matter.
And I know there is so much more to come. I try to remind myself of this whenever I start to miss their babyhoods, although I don't want to look too far into the future, either -- I don't want to miss the beautiful, shining splash when my little children take their first big leaps.
First Lesson
--Phillip Booth
Lie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A dead-
man's float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.
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