We took the girls to the in-laws’ pool today. It was a pretty good demonstration of how different my daughters are. M., nearly three and a two summer veteran of the pool, threw a couple fits because she didn’t want to get into the water. When we finally coaxed her in, it took her forever to relax and have fun. When she was in the water with me, she wrapped her legs and arms around me, clinging tightly, and always had a nervousness in her voice. She’s the worrier. We forced her to get her face wet at the end – I taught her how to hold her breath and we went under together – which resulted in screaming and the end of her pool fun.
For C., this was her first trip to the big pool. I think we may have put her in briefly last summer, but she was too little to remember. Keep in mind, on bath nights, M. yells at us not to get her eyes wet while C. dumps cups full of water on her own face and head. C. was clamoring to get into the pool as soon as she saw it. We got a little inflatable boat she can sit in, and she wanted nothing to do with it. She wanted to get out and swim. Unlike M., when I took C. through the water, she was constantly trying to get away from me and do it herself. As I held her flat on the water, she intentionally dunked her head and then laughed. She made happy noises and loved it when I tossed her up into the air and caught her just as her body hit the water. When my mother-in-law took her underwater for the first time, she popped up with a shocked look on her face, and for about five seconds we weren’t sure how she was going to react, but they she figured out she was fine and tried to get back in the water again. She’s the risk-taker.
Funny how different people with common DNA can be. One of these trips we’ll take the camera or camcorder and get some video evidence of this behavior.