On Sundays when we’ve been in town and haven’t had Sunday plans, I will usually do yoga and cook in the morning while Chris takes Kaia to the playground. Then in the afternoon if she wants, I will either take her to ride her scooter at Lincoln Center, or more often than not, I’ll take her upstairs to our rooftop pool for some puddle jumper time. While she usually has Sunday swim classes, this summer, a wrench kind of got thrown into that schedule, as the pool where her swim classes are is closed for construction/maintenance. So while occasionally she has had double pool time at her lesson, which as we all know, is more “work” and learning, her afternoon time with me is all fun and play. Here, she gets to wear her puddle jumper, which is essentially a toddler “floatie” that has loops for her arms to go through and clips on the back. With this, she can be in the pool without anyone holding her, and she’s pretty self sufficient. We usually have her jump into the pool over and over. She also loves to be twirled and bounced in the water. And of course like all kids, she loves to splash and get water everywhere.
After about forty minutes in the pool, it looked like we were going to have a crowd. We already had two male friends in the pool just chatting and hanging out in one corner. A woman came complete with flippers for both her feet and hands, so she was clearly planning to swim some serious laps. Two other men came looking like they wanted to do laps, but the pool was getting too crowded. Eventually the two chatty guys left, and it was just the female swimmer plus Pookster and me. So after about another ten more minutes, I told Pookster that we had to get out of the pool and would go somewhere else fun.
Pookster wasn’t sure where I’d take her, and she was definitely suspicious, whining and saying she didn’t want to leave. But when I led her to the hot tub and turned on the bubbles, she got really excited. We stepped into the warmth together, and immediately I could see she was happy. She loved the warmth, the bubbles, and all the strong jets shooting water at her from different angles. Kaia giggled and shrieked with delight. And then out of nowhere, she declared, “Ooooh, this is so fun! I want to stay here forever!” She insisted on alternating between sitting in my lap and sitting on her own and trying to “catch” the water from the jets.
These are those moments when I see her experience something new, fun, and exciting that I just want to bottle up. The joy and excitement on her face was so palpable, so innocent and pure and untainted. I just love watching her experience her childhood — it’s almost like I am reliving mine — or rather, living the experiences I never even got to have.