Milestone splash

She jumps in, and splashes away. Sometimes a real stroke can be spotted in her movements; sometimes it’s a doggie paddle. The teacher encourages her, smiling, and she plods on, swimming the whole half lap she is supposed to. It is Jasmijn’s first swimming lesson in the ‘big kids lane’, where no parents have to go in to support their offspring. I stand on the edge of the pool, my guts clenched with mixed feelings.

Pride, off course, for my daughter who just turned three, and now swims her half lane independently, without flinching. Elation as well, as I have been looking forward to this moment for years. The moment that the last of my kids would be able to swim, and I no longer had to join them in the pool for their classes. This moment signals the end of an era. The era of parent and child classes, where we have to sing ‘wheels on the bus’ and ‘sleeping bunnies’, while our kids splatter and splosh, learning to be confident under water and to do simple strokes with pancake-, and crocodile arms. 

My thoughts go back to those first classes with Tijm, in a sweaty English public pool smelling of chlorine, where the baby pool was cold enough for Tijm to turn blue at the end of the lesson, before we bundled him off to the hot and sweaty changing cubicles which were always too pokey to move with our small crowd. 

From there to the sunny outside pools of Singapore with their icily air-conditioned changing rooms was a big improvement. I remember Linde’s first lesson, who, being too old for parent and child classes, was encouraged to ‘jump right in’ and swim to the teacher in the middle of the pool. Before I could shout ‘no, she cannot swim!’ Linde was in the water and had, I am still not sure how, reached the teacher.

From Jasmijn’s classes I mostly remember the cloudy afternoons, where the kids and I managed to feel chilly even in thirty degrees, and the sparkly blue pool just did not look inviting enough. Thirty odd years after my own frustrating experiences, I still don’t like swimming lessons.

So here I stand, my toes dipping in the cool water, together with my friend whose daughter trudges next to mine. We speak, jokingly, of afternoons of leisure, of poolside gin and tonics, of the books and magazines we could bring next week. And I know I am happy, deeply happy, with this new milestone. But somehow I can not ignore this nagging feeling deep down, that makes me just the tiniest bit sad. The feeling that it all goes too fast, that it will never come back again. That I will miss my little monkey jumping off the edge to swim to me, her little arms grabbing my neck and hugging my wet body tight. That I might even, one day, miss 'the wheels on the bus.' 

Gin and tonic, anyone?

Growing up

I no longer have a baby. On wobbly legs she toddles, round and round.
Zigzagging she sways through rooms, to where big sister catches her in widespread arms.
They leave the the hall door open, and before I can blink, she is up the stairs. From the top step she waves down, cooing triumphantly.
Tijm and Linde trek up as well, rug sacks on, to play in their room. Jasmijn follows, quick as a dart. Tijm clicks the stair gate, safely shut behind her.
I want to get her, take her down, secure under my watchful eyes.
‘No,’ Tijm shouts. ‘You can’t come up.’
Three a row, they grin at me from behind the gate.
‘I just want to get Jasmijn,’ I try.
‘No,’ says Tijm. ‘Jasmijn has to stay here. She is our friend.’
Linde nods. ‘Our fliend.’
I go back down, my heart in my mouth. Upstairs I hear clattering, laughing, bumping. Only a few screams. When I go up to check, around the edge of the door, six eyes eye me indignantly. Defeated I retreat.

I no longer have a toddler boy. With his tongue between his lips, in utmost concentration, he writes. Tijm, he writes. And 4. Linde, papa, mama and Jasmijn. Tom is easy, that is just like Tijm. In mass production he draws trains, trees, monsters giraffes and people with heads, bodies and feet.
Then, he rushes to the laptop, ‘type, mama, can I type?’
His fingers dance over the keys. Opa, oma. Opi. Omi. Omama, Roos, Bas and Maas. Others are more difficult and mama spells it out. An F, an R and an E. Slowly Frederiek appears on the screen. Then the A, for Anneke.
Later he nestles in the corner of the sofa with the Ipad, hidden under a plaid. He plays Sonic, Agry Birds, until I catch him on You Tube, staring at blazing guns and bombs, and I hide it on top of the fridge. Were we living back home, in the Netherlands, he’d have started school. He is so ready, my big boy.

And then there is Linde. The most incredible 2 year old ever. With bold, big eyes she defies me, staring over her plate.
‘Don’t want it,’ she pushes it away.
Where Tijm, who is so handy, refuses to put on his shoes, she needs to do everything herself. Everywhere dolls sleep, under blankets, tea towels and dishcloths. Everywhere Linde goes the dolls go too. On the Ipad she plays doctor, cooking and colouring. With felt tips she draws circles and curls, on paper, her head and her hands. She draws the L, for Linde, which she loves so much she uses it everywhere, in warking and rovely. Mole kisses, she demands, in bed, until she decides no, mama, enough, now she will teep.
Linde knows what she wants. And when she looks at me, from under her spotted hat, with those steel-blue eyes, I know one thing will never change. She will always stay my wilful child.