Starfish Swimmer September 11 - 25, 2004 On consequences of discovering a third (vertical) dimension and Tom's first swimming lessons.

	I am a little monkey and this is my safari

	A view towards SFO airport from Sweeney Ridge

Ever since we have Tommy, it has been much more difficult for us to get out on a longer trip. Instead, we discover and rediscover mostly our nearest surroundings.

In hot times, one can escape to higher altitudes (which are invariably distant - some five hours of driving) or do the opposite: get down to the cold ocean. After our recent experience we dismissed San Francisco -- even as a waypoint - and having parked our wagon right by Pacifica, we ascended up to Sweeney Ridge. In the year 1769, an expedition led by Gaspar de Portola started out of San Diego, which aimed at finding a land route to Monterey. The party missed Monterey and instead on November 4 they reached this Sweeney Ridge, from where they first saw San Francisco Bay. Portola, however, found the Bay too large to trek around, gave up and returned. Paradoxically this way they never reached Golden Gate and thus failed to discover one of the world's best natural harbors. San Francisco itself was founded by 1773.

Today, Sweeney Ridge offers a view to densely populated Bay shores with the San Francisco International Airport on one side, and to moody, foggy romantic rough coast by Pacifica on the other side. The same scorching, hot weather down in San José, has on Sweeney Ridge forced us into sweatshirts and long pants. I even caught myself being envious of Tommy's warm hood on this windy afternoon. He must have been pretty comfortable, for he dozed off on our way back down after he tired himself on pulling at my hair. Usually Sid carries him in his backpack seat, and there is, you know, nothing to pull at. My jumping bun of hair invoked in Tom several unexpected salvoes of laughter.

	A view from Quicksilver to Guadalupe Reservoir

With Suchýš, who came again for a visit (it's been my impression that he spends time with us more often than anywhere else), we had organized a family evening hike to Quicksilver. Sid has been a regular in this regard, going to this nearest park to hike with Tom, whenever I wanted to be alone on weekends. It was first time for Suchýš and me, though. My Hippo naturally demands to climb up a hill, which is easier done from Guadalupe Reservoir. As the name suggests, Quicksilver used to be a mercury mining site during California Gold Rush age, a metal needed for extracting gold from ore. To this day the park, just like Sweeney Ridge, separates two world. There is this six million people concrete container of Silicon Valley on one side, and the other side presents wild, impenetrable slopes with small crouching farms and strange, decrepit huts, containing adequately rural inhabitants.

	A view from Quicksilver to Mt. Hamilton

Since middle of September, our house has an official pool boy. Once a week we go to swimming classes at a local health club. AVAC offers a swimming pool for adults, some body building equipment etc., but most importantly, a swimming school for children, in a special indoor pool. The school must be rather popular, classes run throughout the day into the evening, including weekends. Kids start to swim at six months, I though that Tom would be the oldest in the beginners' class, but it's the other way around. Tom is the only child who does not walk yet, among his mates, all others are generally four to eight months older. Sometimes it is funny, since Tom still shows most interest in catching some toy and then wants to chew on in thoughtfully, while other kids throw balls and develop similar activities. What's most important for us, Tom really loves the pool. It is heated to 90°F, which seems to be the substantial criterion for Tom. Our home pool gets up to eighty and he won't last there longer than ten minutes.

	Tommy, tired by his fathers hiking uphill, has settled down to sleep on his back

All babies till three years of age are required to wear leak-proof swim panties. Tom received these blue pants, I found them rather cute (with a logo of the swim school on the butt), so I was surprised that other kids wear regular swimsuits over that -- girls even wear classical one-piece garments. I asked a lady at the reception if it was necessary (I half expected that it may be some outburst of American puritanism), but she eased my mind saying that the only thing he has to wear are their pants he got, and if I care to put something over it, it's my choice. What a relief. I find it such a nonsense to urge a baby to wear a heap of clothes that can only bother him in the water.

What are we learning in the class? For one, they "forbade" us to carry the child around in water, lodged on our sides. They say it's necessary that the kid has free hands and feet, and he can familiarize himself with water, splash, let himself be buoyed and floated. Further they "forbade" us to drag the child or carry through water. If he sees a toy and starts reaching for it, we must not bring him to it, until he begins to kick with his feet. There's no way to explain to a baby how to swim, so we must demonstrate that unless he moves his feet, he won't be getting anywhere. It seems to me that they don't make much fuss about children sinking below the surface, and surprisingly none of the babies in our class would have a problem with getting his or her face wet. Safety, of course, is very much emphasized -- all kids learn not to go into the pool alone -- only after "their" adult is there, and invites them in. We also taught the kids to hold on to the pool edge and get out without help. I like the program, Tom keeps yelping with joy whenever he's in water and splashes merrily around, so I hope we won't be ill much and manage to keep coming there throughout the winter.

	I shall reach!

	Look, daddy, a clock!

I admit that with the aim to retain own mental health I have been hoping to also manage to finally keep some modest interests of my own. We re-started a system where Sid takes Tom out on walks on weekends, while I stay at home and accomplish things without having to jump up every ten minutes and run to resolve some toddler crisis. Once a week I plan to abandon my child and my husband, let go of the chains and release steam at the climbing gym. So far I succeeded only once; we shall se how it works in the future. No matter how much I love Tom, two hours weekly spent doing something that does not relate to babies and household, are very, very refreshing.

Naturally we keep coming to the climbing gym as a whole family. Earlier on Tom used to watch us contemplatively from his stroller, now he crawls all over the place, checking out ropes and securing devices, admiring climbers' harnesses and shiny carabiners -- and stands up at the routes and grabs on to holds. Last time he paid careful attention to my scrambling up. It seemed very touching how my tiny baby was so concerned for his mummy, but I'm afraid that he was not really concerned about me -- he only sought inspiration. On the following day he hung himself from the side wall of his traveling bed, and climbed with his feet up to middle of the wall. In the afternoon he pulled out third drawer in a laundry cabinet, did a pull-up and marched with his little feet up to one third of the cabinet. Later he used yours truly to get on a rocking chair and then scaled the back up to a forbidden (and therefore very attractive and his favorite) plants on a fireplace mantelpiece. He can also almost reach from his changing pad to our wall clock.
It would seem that I imagined parenthood to be a walk in a park. I thought that it would be enough to transform our house into a horizontal cage (i.e. remove all dangerous objects from the reach of our child who would be nicely crawling on the floor). Now it looks as if we would have to evacuate vertically, for our baby has matured into the developmental stage of a monkey.

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