Grace regaled me this morning with tales of her new summer camp (while modeling my shoes). She is most excited by the fact that they have computers at camp. And photography. She told me all about the cafeteria, and about how this summer (unlike the last 2, at the same camp) she actually lines up with her tray and goes through the cafeteria line. She told me about how she has her very own locker for swimming, and that they swim twice a day in the temporary above-ground pools that have been set up inside, on the hockey rink. Once, she said, “for strokes and stuff.” And the other time, “For free swim. That’s the fun one.”
Visions of her playing Marco Polo dance through my head. I remember being this age at summer camp, and the damp coldness of tugging on an already-wet bathing suit for another swimming lesson. I love this camp. As far as I can tell it’s a close approximation of a city high school experience. And Grace is delighted with it.
Whit woke me up at 7:05 when he climbed into bed with her. He giggled while he told me all about dinner with Nana last night. He talked about the roast chicken that she had brought over, with oy-ebs (took me a while to figure out this was herbs). This vegetable and fruit fearing child was so proud of himself for eating the green specks of oyebs, you’d think he had devoured a spinach and kale salad. “And, guess what, Mummy!?” he said, a piece-de-resistance sparkle in his eye, “There was a lemon in the chicken. Stuffed up its bottom!!!”
This afternoon I took Whit to swimming. In the drizzle. We were early, of course, and he was cheerful as he cantered around the pool waiting his turn, tugging up his swimming trunks that are too big and kept falling down, his skim-milk white skin (so much like mine) fairly glowing in the gloom.
Still, he remains resolutely unbuoyant. He sinks like a stone. I wonder if it’s his utter lack of body fat? He loves the water and spends his 30 minutes with his hands clasped around the neck of his college student teacher, laughing and having a ball. But float? Let go? No. At the end of the lesson, Chris, Whit’s teacher, was trying to get him to do a sitting down dive. It looks like he’s about to. But then he just dropped his hands, scooted off his butt into the water, and threw himself into Chris’s arms again.