Two

Here we are. We've reached the hands-in-pockets-doing-my-own-thing stage. Today in swim class, with encouragement (and assistance) from his instructors, Hayden actually went off the diving board. You know, into the water. "Someone helped you," he told me afterward ("you" meaning "me"), all soaked and delighted. "Someone wearing hat!" This from a boy who can't even jump yet. This from a boy who, last week (you know, back before he was TWO) wouldn't even put his face in the water. And now he's blowing bubbles, and going under the water with his swim teacher and with me, and agreeing—Sure! Why not?—to try out the diving board while the rest of the mom-and-tot class tool comfortably around in the shallow end. The diving board, people. So here we are, then, I guess. Summer. Two years old. A mind of one's own. And a great vast world just waiting to be explored.