Last summer, after a swim lesson, Hudson was eager to stay in the pool and show me what he’d accomplished that day. I hadn’t bargained for extra swim time; I’d worn gigantic jeans and hoop earrings because we were just supposed to go to lessons and come home. But he asked with enthusiasm, and he’d done so well at lessons that day, so I hovered close by and decided to let him swim a little on his own.

He was three feet from the edge in the shallow end, and eager to show me how fearlessly he could go under the surface.

Except that he /didn’t/ surface. I was right there, waiting for him to realize his feet could connect with the bottom and propel him up to the top, but after just a moment too long, it became mildly clear that Hudson was drowning in the shallow end.

The whole thing was very quiet. The lifeguards, even the one that had just conducted his swim lesson, didn’t notice the drowning little boy near the kiddie section. It was a mother’s intuition that propelled me into the pool, baggy jeans and all, to fish him out of the water.

We’ve both been a little wigged since then. And while I’ve tripled down on swim lessons, sparing no expense, I’ve rejected one too many pool invitations this summer thinking, “Oh, my little Hudson, he’s not quite ready to swim socially yet.”

I’ve been working hard this summer. It’s been good in some ways — I’m watching my innovations at work take shape and come to life. My income is directly connected to my output for the first time in my life, but also, so are my stress levels. Summer started just yesterday, and inexplicably, it’s already over. Over, and I forgot to really savor time with the children that will not be 6 and 2 next year, children who will have the audacity to be 3 and 7 in the year to come.

So today I threw up an auto-responder, donned some goggles, and damnit, I took my son to the pool.

I realized at some point I’d need to be the mom who modeled swimming, which is a real laugh because I’m a floundering swimmer at /best/. No, I would not be the mother that could benignly monitor from a pool chair with sunglasses and a charming braid.

No, I must model the act of putting my head under and coming back up. Over and over and over again. I was the mom whose curly hair tangled under water, whose makeup smeared beneath my eyes and up my eyelids. I wonder if other mother’s pitied me with their sun hats on.

(Maybe it’s me, not Hudson after all that hasn’t been quite ready to swim socially yet.)

Today, after a year of abject horror of large bodies of water, Hudson threw himself into the pool. And every time I told him to “believe” he could float, he’d thrust his little bum a little higher, and by golly, he’d float. He’d play shark in the pool, and do underwater tea parties with me, head fully submerged, and toes dancing on the bottom for safety. As we tiptoed to Adult Swim, he decided to bravely show me how he could swim independently, if in short bursts, across the pool. A feat he’s never accomplished in swim lessons, but today he was bathed in a different form of liquid courage.

As he swam to me, I’d back up little by little, encouraging him to keep going. It wasn’t novel parenting, but it was a novel experience for the two of us. Me, a non-swimmer, and he, a fledgling swimmer, pushing the boundaries together. At one point he ripped off his goggles and looked back at the pool’s edge to see just how far he’d come, and announced with utter pride, “Woah.”

If there’s a better word than “Woah” to sum up the parenting experience, I don’t know what it is. Because once I gave myself a chance to look up from my laptop this summer, I was greeted by years of growth and development in this little person, who has been working so diligently at finally being brave.

Barraged by my own stress, and my own work, my own anxiety, and my own sucking at swimming, I almost missed it totally.

Whoa.