Our Future Swimmer

As this blog is meant to be a recording of Maxie's life, I want to make sure that I record as many memories as possible before they begin to fade.  Ted asked me to write about our time with Maxie in the swimming pool.  Pretty much since the time Max was born, we had been looking forward to spending time in the swimming pool with him.  Ted and I are both ex-lifeguards and swimmers and we love being in the water. Our first year together, we trained for and then swam the San Francisco Bay from Alcatraz..."Escape from Alcatraz".  Ted can spend hours in the ocean or a swimming pool, literally, hours.  My mom and dad both have great swimming pools and we were excited to get Max wet and pass on our love for water.
As I have mentioned, Max loved bath time.  Baths were warm and contained.  Sometimes he would just start kicking up water and the more we would laugh, the more he would kick.  Max's first time in a swimming pool was on our trip to Costa Rica.  The pool in CR is cold.  Especially compared to the warm, humid air.  It is crisp.  Ted brought Max into the pool, held him under the arms and lightly moved him around the surface of the water.  Max just looked content.  It wasn't a beaming smile or a kicking excitement, just a pleasant look on his face.  Ted was so happy to be in the pool with his son.

The next swimming pool adventure was months later at my mom's house.  This time, Max cried a little and it was obvious that the water was too cold for him.  I ended up taking him out of the water, wrapping him in a warm towel, sitting on a chair next to the pool with him and singing, "Warm and Cozy, warm and cozy, warm and cozy" in his ear.  My bundle of love.  My arms feel so empty just thinking about it.
Of course we tried again, this time with a little float seat that my friend Bianca gave us.  It was pretty perfect and we stayed right next to him.  It may have been that he felt a little more independent or maybe the pool had warmed up a bit.  Not sure.  But, he was content again.

Ted missed this experience but more than made up for it a week or two later in my father's pool.  Max and Ted had a really great time with cousin Mandy too.

The weekend before Maxie's incident, I took him to my friend Amy's house to visit with my other friends Bianca and Tallie and their kids.  Amy's daughter, Penelope, was born in the same hospital, with the same doctor, two days before Max.  They had an instant chemistry and they had so much fun in the little pool in Amy's front yard.  It was such a fun day for Max, that I will always be grateful for.  It was his first and only real play date.

 
This little boy brightened up every single day.  Seeing his smile, I still smile through my tears.  He is the absolute best thing that ever happened to us.
This past Sunday, Ted spent hours in my mom's pool.  The temperature of the water was in the 80s.  It was like a giant bath.  Max would have loved it.