Little fish, little fish

The Kid goes swimming every day at school, but by the time I get her home, I have just enough time to stuff some dinner in her, hose her down, and put her to bed.

Tonight I decided we would go swimming.

We were going to go to the beach, but the sky was pretty gray by the time we got there, so I called my mom on my cell and told her we were on our way over.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because you love us and would like to see us", I calmly responded. "And we're going in the pool".

"Oh, I just meant, ... I was just wondering if you would want dinner... I just..."

Yeah.

It was raining lightly when we got there, and the sun was going down over the Intracoastal. The Kid, a ball of wiggling energy in her tankini, was so excited to be in the water. I remember never wanting to get out of the pool as a kid. I joined the swim team when I was seven, and I remember doing fund raising marathons, where we collected money per lap. My mother used to follow me down the side of the pool with a towel, yelling "You've been in there for two hours!", and I would just keep swimming, joyful with the knowledge that she was pissed off and I was enjoying myself, and there was no way she was jumping in and pulling me out.

The Kid loves to put her head under water. She loved it when I put my head under water. She would say, "Under water! One - two- (deep breath) - THREE!" and she dives under the water, blowing bubbles and laughing and pulling me with her. I got bored just flailing around in the short end, and I told her to hold on, and I swam to the deep end.

"Go under with me!" she screamed, holding on to my hair. I'd give her a second to take a breath, and then slide under the water with her clinging to my neck. A few feet away, my geriatric parents had repeated heart attacks.

She is absolutely fearless.

She is everything I could ever want.

:)