Falling In Line

Sometimes the wind whips around our building with such force that it's not very hard to exaggerate it into what I imagine hurricane winds might feel like (logically, I'm sure the winds we've felt are mere children compared to their parent winds, but still... it is true that children sometimes resemble their parents).  I'm sure the reason for this lies in a combination of 1) the buildings being so close together, 2) the buildings being so tall, and 3) the ocean breeze (which apparently has to do with the air temperature, water temperature, and land temperature all being different).  I bet if I were to really dive into thinking about it, I'd end up using the word 'vacuum' somewhere.

Anyway, the fact remains: sometimes the wind whips around our building with power.  Getting out of the heated pool on a day like that is not something that my children like - especially when we forget the towels (which we do all. the. time) - but on those days I correctly point out that if they would just stand still for about three minutes, the wind would dry them like a giant blow dryer.  Then they correctly point out that a blow dryer blows hot wind, and the wind that they are feeling on their wet skin is definitely not hot (even though it's not really cold either).  Honestly, I don't like getting out of the pool on those days, either... in fact I generally don't even get in the pool on very windy days because, getting out.

Which is why I was sitting on a pool chair on this particularly windy day.  I was sitting on a pool chair thinking about ice cream.  Not about eating ice cream, really, (though, how can you ever think about ice cream without eventually thinking about eating it?) but about how, when you stand at the machine to make yourself a soft-serve cone, you traditionally spiral the ice cream around and around and around an invisible core before making it come to a nice, pointy top.  I was thinking about this because in the moment the wind spiraled around me and pulled my hair into a nice, pointy top, I thought that I knew what it would feel like to be that invisible core - if the ice cream was actually wind instead.

So.  There we were in this wind when Brian suggested to the (very wet) kids that they all get out of the pool, hold hands along the edge, and fall backwards into the water with the goal of: don't bend anything.  I was sure he had lost the kids at Get Out Of The Pool, but Brian has a gift in disguising unpleasant things in pleasant things, so the children didn't even realize they were getting out of the pool.

But they were getting out of the pool, and then they were standing on the edge of the pool with their toes gripping the tile and their heels dangling above 5 feet of chlorinated water.  It was at this point that I grabbed my phone and set it to 'video' to capture the moment when they all fell backwards into the water and gave themselves matching belly-flop marks (which, in this case I suppose would be more correctly identified as back-flop marks).  As you might suspect, Miles, falling from his 3'11" frame, did not contract any back flop marks and Brian, falling from his 6'4" frame, did.

But I'm getting ahead of myself because I really just wanted to write one little thing about the actual fall.  

In addition to the fall being funny and, actually, quite graceful, there was a moment in it that caught in my heart and tugged on one of the strings in the web I've woven to catch these moments of beauty. 

In was the moment of no return.  The moment when their centers of gravity were far enough behind them that there was nowhere else to go but down into the water.  They all reacted differently.  Miles smiled, McKenzie held her breath and concentrated on keeping her body straight, Brian gave a little woah!, and Carson turned his head to lock his eyes onto Dad.  It was Carson that snagged me this time.  Hand in hand the four of them fell together, and Carson watched his dad.

He's getting older, you know.  More independent.  More confident.  He wasn't looking to Brian for courage or comfort, he was looking to Brian to share in friendship and fun.  Being a parent is awesome, I thought to myself.  Courage, comfort, friendship, fun - we play so many roles. 

There are so many ways we can touch and teach them.

And I'm so glad that fun is one of them.