In Which Laurel Refuses to Leave the Baby Pool

I was not a child who wanted to learn how to swim.

In the first swimming classes my mother ever took me to, every time they made us put our heads under the water, I would go under for about a second, immediately raise my head back up, climb out of the pool and rush towards the nearest dry towel to wipe all of the water off of my face.

(If I had grown up in a time like today when they toss two-year-olds into the pool assuming their natural instincts will take over and cause them to swim or at least dog paddle, I probably would have sunk, at best, and drowned, at worst. Nothing about me was interested in swimming.)

This isn't to say that I didn't like the pool. I just preferred the baby pool, water wings, floaties and any other space in which my feet could be placed firmly on the ground while my head remained free to breathe as much oxygen as I pleased.

Truthfully, I didn't even like the ball pit at Showbiz because I was always a little afraid I might be able to drown in that, too. (What if I became trapped under all those colorful balls and no one could hear my cries for help?) I would walk the perimeter of the ball pit to get to the slide rather than going straight through. On the day I did finally fall in, there were a few minutes of flailing until I realized that I could touch the bottom of that space, too. I calmed down and eventually started to act like something of a normal kid in that token and ticket extravaganza. (You can only imagine what a growing up moment that was for me.)

Nothing my parents could say would get me in the big pool.

"You know that's where all of the big girls are," they said.

I shrugged.

"And you know you can't stay in the baby pool forever, sweetie."

I was pretty sure they were wrong on that one. The baby pool was made of concrete after all; I knew it wasn't going anywhere.

The only word out of their mouth that managed to even get my attention was this: Barbie.

"Barbie?" I said, the first time the subject came up.

"What if we bought you a new Barbie after your swim lesson?"

"Barbie?"

"Yes, a Barbie. All you have to do is go to swimming class."

So, I went to swimming class. And after swimming class, my parents drove me to Smith's (a local toy store) and bought me a new Barbie. What I don't think they realized at the time was that that Barbie was only good for one swimming lesson.

"Are you ready to go back to the pool, honey?" 

"Sure," I said, and I went straight for my floaties.

"But what about everything you learned in swim class the other day?"

There was more shrugging. I still wasn't convinced. So, there had to be the promise of another Barbie.

By the end of that summer, I had quite the collection of Barbies in addition to a wide variety of outfits for said Barbies and even Barbie's dream pool complete with plastic plants decorating the edges of her patio. 

I remember it as a glorious time.

My sisters think I was a "slow learner," as they took to swimming like the proverbial "fish to water," but I tend to disagree. They didn't come out of their swim lessons with nearly as much loot.