Back in the Ocean, and No More Holding Hands
July 27, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Ever since Charlie was the ripe old age of 3 or 4 months old, we’ve gone to the beach with him, and specifically the Jersey shore. On our mantel is a photo of Jim holding Charlie (in a blue one-piece outfit and a Pooh denim hat and with an expression of supreme consternation) in the shallows, so Charlie’s (big) baby feet touched the water. There was only one summer—we were moving from St. Louis to St. Paul, in 1998—-that we didn’t make it “down the Shore”; we did drive up to Duluth for the day and there’s a photo of Charlie (who could not yet walk on his own) holding onto both of Jim’s hands in the waters of Lake Superior.
I’ve so many photos of Jim and Charlie walking hand and hand into the waves. Needless to say, when it’s a boy in the ocean—even a boy who is one very strong swimmer—-precautions are not simply necessary, they’re the sine qua non. Until last year, Charlie started the season’s ocean swimming on Jim’s back, and together they took in many a wave. I guess Charlie was 7 or so when Jim called to me “he’s swimming on his back in the ocean!” Whenever Charlie started to drift outside the boundaries marked by the lifeguards’ flags, Jim splashed after him, grabbed his hand and towed a protesting Charlie back to the other flag.
Last year, we had a new challenge, as Charlie started to swim farther out than most people (Jim included) could or would swim; a cell phone and prescription sunglasses were sacrificed in the process of making sure we were in the water by Charlie. This year—with Charlie 11 and some inches taller than me, and his head past Jim’s shoulder, and Jim with an injured back (a herniated disc)—has so far offered more challenges than usual. We usually rent a place at the beach for two weeks in August and get Charlie ready for the ocean — which he’s historically had a lot of trouble transitioning away from — by taking a lot of weekend day trips. This summer has been unusual in that we’ve only done this twice, while Jim was still having so much pain he couldn’t at first walk down to the water. He injured his back in late May and it’s been better, though surgery is still a potential possibility. He and Charlie went to the beach last Saturday and while it a bit of nerve-wracking trip—-bumper to bumper traffic soon as they hit the Garden State Parkway and no ferris wheel in my absence and the ocean was freezing—-Charlie was clearly happy to be back beside the water.
We went down to the beach yesterday, Saturday afternoon, and Charlie made it clear—”bye bye, Dad!”—that the days of holding hands to keep him from going out of the flags and just from going too far are over. Charlie’s swimming is as strong and assured as ever; with a few strokes and a turn from face in to on his back, he was on his way out to sea or on his way to the rock jetty. Jim was able to hurry after him on foot; I’m still too cautious myself about going too deep into the waves, though it looks like I may have to give it a swallow and a try, to keep up with Charlie.
As I made exaggerated gestures to point Charlie away from the jetty (like they’d help!) and Jim splashed after and grabbed an unthrilled Charlie’s hand (what 11 year old boy wants to hold hands, anyways), I also felt awe and happiness. Seeing Charlie turning his head up to the sky and roll onto his back in the open ocean is to see him in his natural element, and at the top of his abilities, and in an environment in which many of us (certainly Jim and me) are barely average at best.
If anything, I need him to hold my hand, to make it through the waves.
Has Charlie been taught any official swimming strokes, or does he just, yaknow, let it flow? Natural-like.
I must confess, I learned my swimming too late in my life, from years 7-8 or so, and it’s never been a natural thing for me; I have to think about what I’m doing.
(unless I’m completely underwater, and then it’s like I’m swimming in outer space)
Say, have you tried to turn Charlie on to a face mask? I know having something like that on his head might creep him out immensely, but you can see better while wearing one.
(Yah, I know, not in the turbid near-beach water.
I have yet to swim in the Ocean, I expect that when I do I will drown, and my opportunity is coming next week to swim in that open sewer that calls itself the North Sea, providing I can find somewhere to stash my cell phone and wallet that is.
Yesterday I had the misfortune to swim in pool full of unruly kids, all of them stronger swimmers than me, they simply had no appreciation for the difficulties they were causing a weak swimmer by infringing lane discipline and generally getting in the way.
Appreciation not only for ones own safety is important but that of the safety of other swimmers too.
I am just trying to make the best of being a late swimmer, I really regret not having learnt at the optimum age because much as I enjoy the feeling of release from gravity that being in the water gives me, I still have to think about every stroke.
Perhaps you could hire a teenager with some lifeguarding experience to swim with Charlie.
I’m with abfh, just make sure he or she is an Olympian.
Cheers
Patrick will get his first real ocean swim this summer. He’s a fish in the pool so, I may be wrong but, I’m assuming he’ll very much enjoy the ocean. Still not sure how we’re going to stop him from swimming out into the great blue yonder….
I’ve been in touch with a friend has two sons who are lifeguards—-am hoping we can figure out how to teach Charlie about the flags as a boundary.
Sounds wonderful! I am so happy you all can share the ocean together. It is fun to see Charlie and Maizie growing up and taking the lead and yet it makes me sad some days. Especially since M is our only and no doubt our last.
This summer was Bubba’s 2nd trip to the ocean… the current was too stong one day and there was a threat of rip tides. The guards said for them to stay in knee deep water, and Bubba kept venturing out farther, with me close behind gesturing and stern. “But mom, I am OK! I am OK!” he kept yelling at me as I kept grabbing for him and sternly telling him to stay by me. “But *I’m* not!!!” I told him. The anxiety was too much for me.
He couldn’t see the threat of danger and I couldn’t see past it…. what a pair we are!
Say, Larry, are you a “floater” or a “sinker”? Those were categories established by Fred Lanoue, who ran the swimming training program at Ga. Tech many years ago. He’s the guy who invented “drownproofing.”
Some people like myself (scrawny ectomorph) are natural “sinkers” as are a lot of mesomorphs. (All that muscle is dense, y’know.)
Endomorphs, or comfortably cushy folks, find floating to be easy.
M’self, I could never float on my back in fresh water without either making swimming motions or sinking.
Fred’s genius was in discovering that everybody, even non-bouyant people like me, could learn to float like a dead man, occasionally sticking his face above the surface to take a breath of air