Sunday, July 21, 2013

A duck to water


Another first today: we took Samuel swimming. We've been wanting to do it for a little while, but have held off a bit because we were worried about the effect the water would have on his eczema, the effect the loud noise would have on him, and - in the main - the effect the military operation of getting a squirmy baby into a swimming pool would have on our mental health. But I have to report back that not only was it reasonably stress-free, but that it was also top fun.

It has to be said, though, that the logistics were astonishing. When we left the flat, we had in our possession a baby in a car seat and FOUR bags. A swimming bag for each of us, plus the usual change bag loaded up with a post-swim lunch for Samuel. That's a lot of luggage for a fifteen minute dip in the pool and I felt like a pack mule, but then I guess that's our life now.

Our pool of choice was The Spa at Beckenham. It's modern and clean, and the teaching pool for kids is right next to the changing and locker area, which makes life nice and easy.

First of all we just sat on the side of the pool, dangling our legs in and playing with Zachary Quack, his favourite rubber duck. The little man seemed unfazed by it all and was giving his surroundings a good eyeballing, so we popped him into the water and kind of whooshed him around a bit. He seemed to like that too, floating and kicking and splashing and checking out all of the other babies. Zachary Quack didn't leave his mouth at any point, so taking a familiar toy on a first visit definitely seemed liked like a good call. We loved watching him love it, and he looked incredibly cute in his wetsuit - like a tiny triathlete. We rolled a little floating ball to him and he really went for that. Then we got a bit cocky and sat him up and held him on one of those big flat float things. He wasn't too keen and soon let us know that he'd had enough for today so off we poddled, back to our four bags and the soggy socks that I'd forgotten to take off when we'd first walked into the soggy changing area (schoolgirl error).


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