About a month ago we took off to Panama City Beach for a week. I’d been wanting to make a beach trip with Holden for a few years now, and it finally seemed like the time to do it.
My little waterbirth baby hasn’t spent much time near the ocean or any body of water, for that matter. As a baby and toddler, his dad wasn’t too keen on taking him to public pools. He worried about safety and water quality/pool chemicals a lot. So we just never really took him swimming that much. When I moved into my own place and had some more, uh, parenting freedom, we started going to the wave pool in summers, and stealing time at hotel pools and friends’ pools when we could. But Holden remained skittish around the water, and would go through periods where he would freak out at even the suggestion that he should get more than his ankles wet.
So I imagine being faced with this vast body of water that seems to teem as if it’s alive with whims might have been a whole new world for him.
The first evening we took to the beach, he spent some time right on the water line, sitting in the sand, letting the waves lap at him. But by a few days in, his stance was much more aggressive, and he waded in waist deep and took to fighting the waves and doing sick ninja moves to slash through the surf as it pushed toward him.
He grew braver, and asked Richard and me to hold his hand and walk further and further out into the waves with him, so he could jump over them as they pulsed toward the shore. The salty water would slosh onto his face and fill his nose and leak into his goggles and he never once lost his cool. He got spooked a little, but I could see his fear abating with every step we took away from shore.
Best of all, he didn’t even need us there for most of his water time. We could be near, and he wasn’t scared. He played with the waves and fought the surge and fought fictional battles to a hummed soundtrack. He had a blast, and was upset every time we had to dry off and go inside.
I’m grateful to the ocean for providing that self-regulating, gentle nudge to my boy, who was born in the water but who has forgotten its pull and fears its power.
More photos from our trip are here.