Today was a day of firsts. My dive instructor has been asking when Junior will be “getting wet” and this morning was his first swim class. I had two concerns going into this:

• What does he wear as a diaper?
• What if he doesn’t hold his breath?

The answers after the jump.

The swim instructor tells me he needs “swim diapers.” I don’t remember seeing them in the long aisle at Target but I never really looked before. So off we go and there’s maybe four packages of Pooh and Nemo decorated swim diapers.

Getting everything handled in the locker room was another story. I’ve got the car seat, a fully dressed kid (it was cold and rainy today), and my own clothes. We got it sorted and headed to the pool.

Maybe it’s all the time in the bathtub because he was right at home. The next big question was going underwater. They say infants have a “natural breathholding reflex” but I wasn’t so sure. Nine months of amniotic fluid is one thing but once you’ve had air there’s no going back.

And so it goes… I’m holding him parallel to the water, a quick blow on his face (some reflex if you need to cause it) and we submerge a couple of inches. He surfaces, happy as a clam.

But that’s not the only go around. The instructor takes him next and I guess the reflex wasn’t working so well this time. He swallowed water, cried, and got over it. Two more times he went under, holding his breath each time. A fast learner!

I said this was a day of firsts. At his six-month check-up he started rolling from tummy to his side. This is the initial step before all hell breaks loose in his quest for mobility. As I put him to bed I watched in horror as he rolled over and I imagined his little arm getting pinned in the crib. Out came the “bumper” after long-last.

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