Today as I was tidying up the kitchen Wes observed me moving a honeydew melon to the counter. He pointed to it and said, “ball.” I explained that it wasn’t a ball, but fruit.

He wanted to hold it, so I handed it to him but warned, “Don’t throw it.”

The next thing I knew the melon was tossed to the floor. I picked it up and told him again that it was fruit. We don’t throw fruit, we eat it.

So then instead of throwing it Wes started doing this:

The other day I gave up trying to feed Carissa her morning rice cereal and let her do it herself. Unlike Wes, Carissa has no qualms about getting her hands messy.

Since she got her top teeth (grand total of four teeth now), she likes to bite things between her chompers. Like this toothbrush holder.

Speaking of teething, I just discovered tonight that Wes is getting a new tooth! Considering he didn’t get his first tooth until he was 19 months old, I guess I shouldn’t be too shocked that they’re still coming in when he’s about a month shy of turning four. He’s getting his lower left canine (the one next to the front row of four teeth). I’d often wondered why he had a gap on either side of that front row of teeth, but after a while I kind of forgot that he had teeth missing. He still chews on his fingers, a lot, and maybe this helps explain that.

Last week we let Wes play in this mini-water park where water shoots up from the plaza. He didn’t want to go when it was time.

And Carissa looked on.

Wes finished up two weeks of swim lessons today. It will take many years, I think, before the kid learns to swim for real. But he had fun!

Every time his turn with the teacher was over he’d stand on the pool steps, face his “audience” (the parents) and clap and cheer for himself, saying “Yeah!”. The other parents called themselves his fan section and clapped and cheered with him.

Here’s his GQ shot.

At the end of each class the kids can go down the water slide and jump off the “high” dive. The first couple of days he wasn’t scared and jumped right off. But after that he got more timid and had to be pushed/dragged in. But he always liked it once he was in the pool.

Here he is standing in line.

And preparing to jump.

Here he is jumping in, before he lost his nerve.

Today after class I took him (and Carissa, who was asleep) to the drugstore downtown for an ice cream cone. I’m not sure he’s ever had his very own ice cream cone before. After he threw it on the counter face down I showed him how to lick it, and then to crunch the cone, and after that he was fine and ate nearly the whole thing, occasionally pausing to say, “Num! Good!”

This week and next Wes is in “swim school,” which is what we call his swim lessons. Before his first day I really wasn’t sure if he would like being in the pool or not. The last time he was in a pool (in California, in April) he didn’t seem comfortable.

Well, I shouldn’t have worried. Wes LOVES swim school. I take him to a house not too far from our own that has a swimming pool in their backyard. The owner’s adult kids offer the lessons. Wes shares his 45-minute lesson with another child. When the teacher is taking the other kid across the pool, Wes sits on the steps and waits his turn.

Supposed to wait his turn, anyway. The time he spends sitting on the steps is time I spend reminding him to stop throwing things into the pool, to stay on the steps, to stop splashing the other kids, etc. It’s a little tiresome sometimes.

Today, actually, while he was “sitting” on the steps he decided to jump into the water by himself. Of course there was no one to catch him because his teacher was on the other end of the pool with the other kid. Now, if I had thought and not just reacted, I could have snagged another swim teacher (whose back was to Wesley) and asked her to pull my son from the bottom of the pool. But since moms don’t think, they just react, I walked into the pool myself and pulled him back to the side.

Here he is considering throwing something in. He loves those rings. His teacher lets him throw the ring in, and then they go fetch it together.

On his first lesson on Monday, the teacher dipped Wesley’s face under just up to the nose. But by the second day Wes went all the way under. He takes it well.

Here he is on the boogie board, practicing kicking (“splash your feet!”).

Wesley’s least favorite activity is floating on his back. I think the teacher spends most of that time getting whapped in the face by Wesley’s hands as he flails around wildly.

But Wesley’s favorite thing is when his teacher throws him in the air and catches him. Like so.

And, of course, Carissa is here too. I keep her in her carseat for as long as I can, but usually by the end she wants out.

At the end of class the kids get to do fun things, like go down the water slide or jump off the high dive (it’s not so high; you can see it in the picture behind Carissa).

Today the other kid in class started half-way up the water slide (her dad set her up there) and slid down, but she wasn’t happy about it. The teacher caught her in his arm (his other arm was holding Wes). But she was crying, and that got Wes crying. But both kids got over it and Wes went down the slide a little, too.

Then they went to the side of the pool. The girl jumped in first, the teacher catching her. When I asked Wes if he wanted to jump in, he said, “No.” But I nudged him to the edge anyway and he jumped in just fine.

Then the girl went to the high dive. She was sacred to jump off, but the teacher said he would hold her hand (from the water below, where he was waiting to catch her). She jumped in, and then it was Wesley’s turn.

I asked Wes if he wanted to jump off the high dive, and of course he said, “No.” But we went over anyway, and without hesitation he jumped off–BIG jump–before his teacher even had time to grab onto Wesley’s hand to help him jump.

Both kids did it one more time apiece. After his second time, Wes emerged from the water saying, “Yeah!” and gave a high-five to a bystander on the edge of the pool.

Swim School is good.

Life slowed down today. We went to the park. Carissa sat on a pink blanket in the shade while Wes played in the playground. He mostly stood and watched other kids. I wasn’t sure why he was watching more than playing, but he seemed content. After a while he discovered a girl from his preschool class. She was with a small group of kids, and they were running around together. He joined in and was finally having a blast, laughing and smiling as he ran after them. It made me happy to see him so happy.

After a minute or two they raced around a giant evergreen tree on the far side of the playground by the road. It’s so big that they all disappeared from view for a few seconds. I saw all the other kids emerge on the other side, but not Wes. I squinted and saw another little boy playing inside the hollow space beneath the branches, and I wondered if Wes was in there, too, but I couldn’t see him.

I left Carissa and walked over (had I known better, I should have run) just in time to see Wes in the street. A man stood in the street next to his minivan, holding up one hand to stop traffic, and using his other hand to push Wes back towards the sidewalk. I don’t know if this man had been pulling out of his parking space along the side of the playground when he saw Wes, or if he had been one of the cars driving down the street. All I know is that I saw my little, unassuming boy narrowly escape what could have been a devastating accident.

When we left the park and drove down the same street where he had been found, I pictured what it would be like for me as a driver if a little kid ran out onto the street from between the parked cars. I knew the kid wouldn’t have a chance.

I pray for my kids’ safety, and today a prayer was answered.

As I took Wes home I thought about how different things could have been. It could have involved a hospital, or much, much worse.

I held him tighter today. I gave him extra kisses. In a split second things could have been different. But I’m so glad they weren’t.