“I won’t be in the second,” Eva calls. “What?” shouts back Karl from the car.
“She means she’ll just be a second,” I say, bundling the bag that is bigger than the one I took travelling for three months into the back. “She’s talking to gravity. Come on Evie, we have to go now.”
We are taking Tom swimming for the first time. He is starting a month later than Eva but neither seem to mind. I am not a huge fan of swimming. Jeff has always been the one who ‘does’ it with our daughter, (unlike Kate Middleton who DROVE HERSELF and Prince George swimming at granny’s when she was 38 weeks’ pregnant).
The only reason we are all going today is for practical reasons: the arse of it is that I can’t express enough this time around for a bottle. So here we all are, Saturday morning, off to swimming.
Eva walks carefully down the path. “Gravity? Um gravity?” “Yes?” I reply.
“You are pulling me, gravity, but when I do go swimming, gravity, you, um, um, you, um, you WILL NOT pull me, gravity.”
Karl looks puzzled.
“In the playground this morning, she asked me if the ground wanted her to stop swinging and I told her it was gravity.” I buckle my daughter up and off we go.
“Yes, I will try, actually,” I say (being gravity) “but you will kick and kick and use your woggle and I will not pull you down, down under the water to the bottom of the pool.”
“Jesus,” says Karl.
Eva is a bit quiet. “Mummy?” “Yes?”
“Can I have some chocolate please?” “Well done for saying please, but no.”
“But. Please.”
“I said no. I wonder how many other babies will be at swimming today. How many do you think?”
“One. Two. Three. Four … oh, no, no, no. My friends at swimming are not babies,” says Eva. “They are Milo and Seb and Amy and Poppy and …”
“Yes,” I say, “but you’re not going swimming today. You are going to watch your little brother with me. We will stay at the side of the pool, sitting down.”
Eva toys with her seatbelt. “Gravity?” “Yes?”
“We are going to sit down, gravity, by the side of the pool. So you CAN’T pull my legs, gravity, ’cos I will be sitting down already.”
Karl sighs. “Gravity will make you sit down,” he says.
“No. Mummy will make me sit down,” Eva says, glumly. “And, um, gravity?” “Yes?”
“Mummy will not give me some chocolate gravity. But you can pull it gravity and you can get it.” “Right, everyone. Let’s sing the Puddleducks song, shall we?” I say, through gritted teeth.
Eva and I take our places at the side of the pool. Karl proudly carries his son to the steps and lies him on the ’launch towel’. Mark Zuckerberg has just told the world about his two-month old’s first swim. This will be a breeze.
Unfortunately, Karl creates a small tsunami as he gets in and thus, when the instructor passes our son carefully across, he screams his little heart out as though the pool water were nitric acid.
“Oh dear,” says Eva sadly. “I don’t think he likes swimming.”
The other babies lie like beached fish on floats. Tom bucks and Karl throws me a tired look. “Mummy?”
“Yes?” I say, giving Karl a supportive thumbs-up. “Can I go in, please?”
“No.”
“But I want to.”
“I know, darling, but it’s not your day today. And you’ve got your clothes on. And no swimming costume.”
She surveys the vast expanse of blue that, up until now, she has owned. “But. I WANT to Mummy.” She wriggles one arm up and out of her neck hole and takes a couple of steps towards the edge.
“NO,” I say firmly. “Gravity, can you help me please?”
I scoop Eva up and we exit the pool, Tom’s screams echoing through my brain as the door sucks shut. “Mummy?” Eva says calmly, once I put her down in the changing room.
“Yes?”
“Can I have some chocolate please?”
“A tiny bit. But it is the chocolate I need to make baby milk so please don’t eat too much.” She has a little think. “Gravity?”
I hesitate. “Yes?”
“You can’t have this chocolate, gravity.” “OK.”
“’Cos Mummy does need this chocolate to make baby milk.” “OK.”
“But when Mummy gives my baby brother baby milk she does use two hands, gravity, so you can have the chocolate then, gravity, ’cos you will have it ‘cos it will fall on the floor, gravity.”
I wobble a bit. “Um, yes …”
“And then I will help you pick it up, gravity.” Eva looks content.
“OK, everyone?” says Karl, blowing through the door holding a writhing Tom. “Pol, I think some baby milk would be good at this point.”
Eva looks at me. “Mummy. Gravity will look after your chocolate for you, ‘member?” “Yes,” I sigh, putting it on the floor.
