Baby Gator: Water Bug

As of Tuesday I am back at home full time until August first. I love getting to be with Olive all day long. Plus now that she is older it is a lot easier to take her places and do things with her. Her patience threshold isn't infinite, but it's a lot longer than it used to be.

We've been doing some shopping this week. Olive has outgrown most of her 0-3 month clothes, and while I have tried to be in denial about it, I realized it was time to give in and buy her some 3-6 month clothing. I know it seems strange that I wouldn't want to buy her new clothes, but she has so many great 0-3 clothes I don't want to give them up. As an adult when I have a favorite shirt, or favorite jeans I can get use out of them for years. Some of my favorites of Olive's clothes she's only gotten to wear a handful of times, and I want to see her in them over and over again. I think I have a strange attachment to clothing, I tend to wear my clothes until they are worn out. I'm just glad her separates still fit her, and will last longer.

Actually the reason I finally bought her some new clothes is because I wanted to get her a swimming suit. There were two motives for this, first, we are going to be spending the second week of June at Fripp Island with my family. Second, she loves the bath. Olive loves the bath so much that I feel guilty every time I take her out. I wish I could leave her in longer, but I imagine eventually she will end up pooping in the tub, and that will be a big mess, that will mean getting get out of the tub, cleaning the tub, and then refilling the tub to re-clean her. Of course I picture it as total chaos, with a screaming baby. In order to avoid all that I don't let her stay in the tub more than 20-25 minutes. So the other night I had this brilliant idea to actually use our apartment's pool, and take her swimming.

Now it might not seem like that big of deal to take her to the pool, but come June Mark and I will have lived here 2 years, and we have never been in the pool. Our apartment overlooks the pool. People going to the pool have to walk past our door to get there. We can hear people in the pool from our living room, and yet we have never gotten in it. Never lay out next to it (probably because we are both as white as ghosts), never even sat next to it on a nice night and had a couple of beers. So the idea of going swimming with less than a month until we move out (wow I guess I should start packing) just seems kind of funny to me. There is no real reason for me as to why I have never been in the pool other than the whole fair skin thing. Going to the pool, even a pool right outside my door is just a hassle for me. It means lots of sunscreen, and if I'm alone how do I get it on my back? Mark on the other hand refuses to go to public pools. Too many dirty people. Plus he had a pool in his backyard growing up, so he likes having the pool all to himself, he's not into sharing with people he doesn't know.

Of course all of this goes out the window when we realize that our Olive is meant for the water. Thus, step one; buying her a swimming suit. Except there is a lack of 3-6 month swimming suits in Atlanta. I went to Babies R Us, Target, and Carters and only found two. If she were 12 months I could have bought her 50 swimming suits. But in her size there were only 2. I bought one from babies r us, but when I got home and put it on her the way it was cut it was too tight around her chest. I thought about going back to Carters, but that one was $20, and I feel like I can find one for less. So as of right now she just has a swimming diaper that she swims in. Mark teases me that she is being immodest, but I think she looks cute.

Step two sunscreen. I had a long internal debate about this. Part of me thinks I should just keep her out of the sun completely this summer. She is so young, and I don't really want to put sunscreen on her skin yet. But another part of me knows this is unrealistic, and especially with how much she likes the water there is no way I am keeping her indoors from 8-6 all summer long. I looked up a bunch of different sunscreens and checked their toxicity ratings here http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/. I ended up getting Johnson & Johnson's new sunscreen for babies it had a rating of 2, which it seems like most of the sunscreens at least rated 2. They had it at Target.

Step three get Mommy a swimming suit. This was the worst step. But Olive's new patience came in handy as I was able to put a blanket down on the floor in the dressing room and she lay their happily watching me try to shove my post pregnancy body into swimming suits.

Finally after all my preparations the moment of truth came Wednesday afternoon. I slathered her in sunscreen, put her swim diaper on her, and stuck her in her gator hat. I walked down the steps into the water with her, and at first she seemed a little confused, and then she was just content. Not overjoyed, but happy to be walked around in the water. It actually ended up being a fun little family activity.