September Swim School

September has brought not only the beginning of Spring, but the start of baby swim school for Alice!

Leslie and I were both keen to get the little one comfortable in the water from an early age. For me, it's because I have never myself been comfortable or confident in the water. I'm a poor swimmer and I have bad memories of my swim classes as a child. Leslie is a strong swimmer and we both hope she inherits his aptitude in the matter! He has been excited about starting an activity that could become something that the two of them share together.

Alice also had a say in her new hobby, of course. From her first bath in the hospital just a couple of days after she was born, she has shown a real love of the water. She's never once cried or fussed in the bath. She seems to find it really relaxing, and increasingly, really fun now that she can kick her little arms and legs about to make a splash.

The swim school takes babies from three months of age for water familiarisation and awareness lessons. This week is school holidays in Victoria and they were running a week-long trial program for babies, so that you could try-before-you-buy for the coming term. Next term she'll be attending classes with many of her little friends from mothers' group, but this week there are only three babies participating - one from mothers' group, and another little fellow, who is eight months old.

Les worked from home today so he could come during his lunch break. As a) I can't swim well and b) I don't want to see myself in bathers anytime soon, he accompanied Alice into the water. I'd bought her a cute little swimming suit and water-proof nappy (although I have no idea how those things work?!) and I was so excited putting them on for her. I told her all about how much fun she was going to have in the 'big bath' and she seemed genuinely joyful to be going on an adventure. 

It's a salt-water pool, which is much better for delicate baby skin than a chlorinated one, and it was really well heated, too. A little too heated if you're standing on the sidelines fully closed. 

Alice looked surprised when she first got into the water, but she took it all in her stride. She is a very brave little girl! She spent the entire lesson with a very serious look on her face, though, interspersed with a frown. Where the other two babies were smiling and having fun from early on in the lesson, Alice remained very reserved, taking in everything around her. She participated in all of the activities but she was keeping her feelings to herself! I don't think it was that she didn't enjoy the water. She is just a pensive little thing. She likes to observe and process everything that is going on around her before she jumps in. She is much like her Dad in that way, I can already see this. She also was the only girl in the class, and the smallest, so perhaps it was a little intimidating, too!

One thing's for sure - they don't take baby steps in baby swim class. First time in the pool, ever, and they were already putting their heads under the water with a game of Humpty Dumpty! There were no tears from any of the babies all lesson, which I thought was pretty impressive!

Alice was so tired by the end of the class that she could barely stay awake, and got a bit sad while getting dry and dressed. Her little lip was quivering and she was starving, so we got her rugged back up and I gave her a quick feed before bustling in her into the car. She fell asleep instantly and had a good hour-long nap when we got home. 

It was a perfect day to be introduced to the pool - a balmy 27 degrees in Melbourne, which was the warmest day Alice has ever experienced!

I can't wait to take her back again on Wednesday and Friday, and for her to start proper classes with all of her little friends in October.

We are both very proud of our little baby and so excited that we get to go on these many adventures with her. We are the luckiest parents in the world.

Another season without you

My darling boy,

I've been composing this letter in my head for days now, but to find the time - no, the energy - to sit down and pour the words out has been hard. It's not that I don't think of you anymore, far from it. It's just that I'm trying to give your little sister all my time and attention. She deserves it, of course, but so did you. How I wish that I could have given you more time. How I wish that someone had have given me more time with you. I'm so conscious of every minute that passes when I'm in your sister's company. I'm so fearful of wasting moments, even mundane, everyday moments, because I know too well that moments are sometimes all you get and that the nature of them can change in an instant. I know that it is only a moment that separates any of us from the stuff of our worst nightmares. I try not to let it, but of course this knowledge gets to me sometimes. I don't wish to be naive again, I wouldn't choose to go back to the way I was before you were born. At the same time, though, I wish the backdrop to my busy day were not a ticking clock, reminding me of how fleeting my life is, and how impermanent all that is in it.

I inhabit a strange world right now. Though my heart has expanded to find room to love my two children, as parents of multiple children will tell you it does, it is becoming increasingly awkward to have one foot planted in the here and now and one back there, on that special November day, with you. Thinking of you necessarily entails a looking back to the past, as the past is all you and I have. There are so few reminders of you in my daily life, despite my many efforts to create keepsakes and special symbols in your name. Your photos are up all over the house. Your beautiful urn sits in full view when I come through the front door every day, I walk past your special plants whenever I leave the house, your doll and teddies, and ornaments sit proudly in the living room where I look at them all the time. But all of these things - and I know how lucky I am to have so many of them - are not enough. As the months march on I fear that you get further away and I don't know what else I can do to keep you here. I take every opportunity I get to speak your name and to tell your story, even when it's awkward, even when it's painful. But still you slip away. You have always just too easily slipped away.

A few days ago I added a picture to my bedside table of your sister, right next to the one I have of you. I framed one for Daddy, too, so he could have both of his little children right in front of his eyes when he wakes up each morning. I chose a black and white picture of Alice to match the black and white one of you that I've always had there. I spent ages sitting on the bed and looking back from one to the other, desperate to find the similarities between the two of you.

I can see that Alice has the same nose as you. I wish I found it easier to imagine how you might have looked had you been bigger, had your skin not still been so fragile and translucent. In the photos I chose you both have your eyes shut. You look no more dead than a sleeping baby. all over again I find myself willing you to wake up. I like to think that you might be just about to open your eyes in that picture. In the same thought is a sudden stabbing pain, though, as I realise that I never got to find out what colour your eyes were. Alice's being so blue have made me wonder if yours were too. There are so many things I wish I knew about you, and some of them are only becoming apparent now. Everything I learn about your sister highlights the sad fact that I knew so little about you. What kind of little personality would you have had? What did your face look like when you smiled? 

There is a little baby in the new mother's group I've been going to that Alice has taken a shine to. I recently found out that his middle name is Maxwell. I felt uncomfortable with this to start with. I hate to think of any other person being called by your name. But when I'd had time to think I decided that this could be a lovely thing - a connection from you to Alice, perhaps, through this lovely little baby friendship. I told the little boy's mum that it was my son's name, too, and she agreed that it is a fine name - one given only to beautiful little souls and fine, kind men. A few of my new friends from the group have asked about you now we have gotten to know each other a bit better, and I'm so happy to talk to them about you. I want everyone to know that Alice has a big brother, and that he is a part of our lives, and that we miss him beyond measure. I never want her to have to ask about you. I want her to always know that she's the world's greatest little sister, not an only-child.

Your camellia plant has bloomed again, for the second year in a row. It was beautiful to see, but it also reminded me that really soon it will be two years since I saw you for the first and last times. The warming weather reminds me that it was Spring when I lost you. Your season is here again. We begin our lives without you all over again.

It goes without saying that I miss you. There aren't enough words in the English language to describe how much so, or in how many ways. 

I love you, always. Thank you for letting me be your mum.

Love Mummy xxx