So Happy To Swim

My daughter hasn’t been able to get her head (well eyes) wet for weeks now due to the surgeries she’s had on both eyes.   She’s been better about keeping her eyes dry more so than we have.   On the few incidences where she got wet, for instance in our friend’s pool in Maryland, she burst into tears and got out of the pool because she was so upset.

In the bath she’s been the same little diligent child she always is.   Recently she’s wanted to wash her own hair and has gotten pretty good at it.   As she was leaning back in the tub to rinse last night I told her, “you didn’t get the very top part near your forehead”.   I was surprised when she said, “but I can’t get my eyes wet.”

I told her there was good news, she could now get her head wet and could even go under water.   There was this serenely happy look that came over her face—the face of my child who loves nothing more than spending time underwater in the pool.    She asked me again to make sure she’d heard me right and then asked again if it was okay to go under in the tub.   “Go ahead”, I said, and she dove under without another word.

Getting her out of the tub after that was a challenge because she wanted to stay under water and see how many seconds she could last and could we please count again to see if she could beat her record. Today our sitter was picking up the children and I suggested the pool because we were cleared for swimming.  

My daughter was at the pool until well past dinner time, happily swimming and going under water as much as she pleased.    It’s almost the end of June, she’s waited a long time to swim, hopefully she can make up for missed time in the next few weeks before we go back to Detroit for potentially more surgery.

The Big Boy Update:  My son and his friend set up some NinjaGo Lego characters in a certain configuration.   It looked like a little Ninja army aligned for battle.   My son asked me to come in and take some pictures.   Then he wanted dad to see.   But when we came downstairs instead of suggesting I show the picture he said to his father instead, “we have a picture but I’d rather you see it in person.   Those pictures are just to remember it.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had lost one of her arm muffs the other day.  She had all four in her hands when she was going up the stairs but at the top, only three remained.   I told her I’d help her find the missing muff, heading back in the direction we’d come.   She yelled out in a very worried voice, “go look everywhere!”