Natural born swimmer
When Max was about three months old, I decided to take him
swimming for the first time. When they're that age, there's not
much else you can do except sit around and wait for them to grow
up. But I had no idea how much the swim would affect him.
The class had eight or nine other mums with their children. The
first thing the teacher did was dunk the babies into a bucket of
cold water. Max was the only one who didn't cry. In fact, he didn't
even seem surprised.
Then we got into the pool. They say the best thing to do is go
down under water with your child for a few seconds. Then pull
the baby out of the water and hold them high up in the air in case
they swallowed any water.
The face Max made was hilarious. First he had this expression
that said "why on earth did you do that to me?" which very quickly
turned into "let's do it again!". Then he just pretended like it
was all normal: water off a duck's back. He was a natural.
The funniest part of it all was that I was terrified. Even
though your baby's technically just spent nine months under water,
it's a scary thing for a parent to do.
Max is three now. In the afternoons after kindergarden he builds
strange structures out of our sofa cushions and calls them swimming
pools. And he'll only get out of the bath once all the water's
drained.
That first swim ignited something in him. I think he's going to
be a swimming star of the future!