channeling ethel merman

Today I happened upon Abby's forgotten and barely used water wings in a plastic tote in the garage. Of course upon seeing them she just had to put them on, despite that fact that she is swimming quite well for a self taught beginner. As you can imagine that little experiment lasted all of about three and a half minutes once she realized water wings didn't allow for easy underwater swimming and if there is one thing Abby truly loves (all of the sudden) it's to be underwater. So I tugged and pulled and pried them off her arms. What is it about those things that makes them impossible to take off or put on, for that matter.

Now while I was taking care of this Maya was happily floating next to me in her baby boat. If you haven't seen one of these it is basically a baby sized dingy to two leg holes in the bottom. So the seat portion of the dingy fills up with water while her legs dangle beneath her. Maya does love it although she can get a little stir crazy after awhile and wants to be free of the confines of the baby boat. This isn't really a big deal being as we are only in 30 inches of water so I can comfortably sit on the floor of the pool while holding her in my lap. Of course she doesn't tolerate that for very long either. See she's a busy little girl. At 18 months she has already mastered the child sized rock wall climber in the backyard. By herself. And she wants to slide down the slide once she gets to the top. By herself. Now my plan earlier in the summer was to buy her one of those bathing suits with the flotation device sewn right in. Of course the local Wally was consistently sold out of her size. Then I thought about a life jacket, but was really holding out for the swim suit. So I waited and waited and waited and the next thing you know all the pool stuff is gone and replaced with fun sized chocolate bars, binders, back packs and cardboard skeletons. Also there may have been a Christmas tree, I'm not exactly sure. The point is summer is over my friend. At least according to my local retailing giant.

So tonight looking at the discarded water wings floating in the pool and listening to Maya say me me me me while pointing at the water and attempting to stand in the baby boat. Which by the way is no where near as easy as doing a hand stand in a canoe. And I had a little brain wave. I would put the water wings on Maya. Now getting them on wasn't a problem I mean besides the fact that they are near impossible to get on. Once I attempted to demonstrate how she could float with them, well that was another story. I think I would of had greater success trying to cage sand. Now she can stand in our pool, something I have to remind her of every time we get in by holding onto her and straightening her legs out until they touch terra firma. The water comes up to her shoulders and she's happy to stand provided her Dad or I are right there holding her tightly.

So tonight I went that route showing her she could stand while still keeping a firm grip on her. I think she could instantly sense the difference the water wings made because it wasn't too long before she had pulled away, putting a little bit of space between us. Next thing I knew she was still holding my hands, but now an arms length away. Then with a sly grim she raised one leg to the side as if she were a ballerina warming up and brought it as close to the surface as she could. Abby and I, obviously, cheered our heads off for her which made for lots of proud giggles from Maya. And then, just like that, she was switched legs, raising one then the other with little break in between. I'm not really sure who was Pavlov's dog in this scenario. Was she performing because we kept cheering or were we cheering because she kept performing? Either way she just kept going gathering more courage as she went.

And then before I knew it she had let go of my hands and was standing on her own. Which sent Abby running to the house so Daddy could witness Maya's awesomeness. Not quite done with her showing off she began walking, first a few cautious steps but before long she was walking, confidently from one side of the pool to the other (12 feet). It was on one such crossing that she happened to lift both feet off the bottom and give a bit of a kick before returning to her standing position. And the amazing part was she actually meant to do it so there was no freaking out. I'm sure our neighbours thought we had won the Stanley Cup in our yard in August with the amount of very loud celebrating the three of us were doing while Maya smiled that "yeah I know I rock!" smile.