We took Asha swimming and she was beside herself with excitement and joy, almost to the point of derangement. She couldn’t even. We went with Asha’s friend Rani, and Danny, Rani’s dad. Asha is a water baby times a thousand, she wanted to keep swimming forever and ever and ever, she wanted to go everywhere and do all of the things. She said, “THIS ONE,” and, “THAT WAY,” and, “AGAIN,” and, “ASHA SWIM.” She played in the fountains and under the waterfalls and with the water guns and jets and sprinklers, she even wanted to dive off the diving board by herself. She loved the hot tub area and wanted to stay in there, Asha loved swimming and being in water so passionately it was poignant to see. The only problem though was that she didn’t want to leave. Eventually we had to bodily remove her kicking and screaming. She ignored our assurances that we’d return so that she could swim again. Asha shouted, “NO NO NO,” and, “MY WATER,” and, “ASHA SWIM,” as we attempted to gather her up and go. She was beyond crushed that swimming was ending. Finally she was distracted by some smalls kids skating in the adjacent skating rink, Asha’s mad for skating also. She said, “ASHA SKATE,” and grinned maniacally. Then I got Asha a giant scoop of strawberry ice cream with rainbow sprinkles on a small cone and she was maximum stoked. Watching her carefully enjoying her giant scoop of strawberry ice cream wobbling on the little cone was precious. Asha’s eyes just shone. She said, “MMMMMMM,” and, “DELICIOUS.” Seeing the skating and getting the ice cream both lessened the pain of stopping swimming. That said, Asha absolutely cannot wait to go swimming again. Every day she says, “WATER,” and, “ASHA SWIM.” Swimming was fun for us as well, even though it’s something we rarely do. We’re such amateurs however and were totally unprepared, we basically forgot everything important. At the pool when we opened our bag, we saw we forgot masks, I forgot my bathing suit, we didn’t have towels and we didn’t bring extra diapers. Asha wasn’t even wearing a coat. God, we’re so bad, but we’re still pretty awesome parents too.
