Water Baby

During the long and painful process of narrowing down a name for Forest, I originally was smitten with the name ‘River’ for a boy. Jonathan ordained it too ‘out there’ but mentioned he liked the idea of a nature name, so we compromised with ‘Forest’. And while I have no namer’s remorse, I can’t help but think that our son would have made an excellent ‘River’. 

For one thing, he’s likely to move about his whole life rather than staying rooted in one place. And for another, this kid is obsessed with water. He gravitates to it like nothing I have ever seen. Sure I see loads of toddlers who enjoy splashing around, but Forest’s entire face beams when he’s in the water and you can hear his gleeful shrieks for miles. 

I am really worried about the drought in California for many reasons, but a big downer personally is that we can’t in good conscience fill a baby pool for him everyday. He is in weekly swim lessons and we often take him to the pool at our gym on warm weekends and plan to do that a lot as the temperatures start to rise. 

Also, I don’t know how long this will last with drought restrictions, but a couple of the community parks here have splash pads which are PERFECT for toddlers because they can splash around without the whole possibility of drowning thing. There is a really great one 5 minutes down the road from us at Rancho Park and it is Forest's version of heaven.

Seriously. I have never seen him happier or more in his element. He actually stayed in one area of a park for over 20 minutes which I’m pretty sure has never happened before. 

We also have an inflatable baby pool which we use sparingly and try to share with his baby buddies so we can justify the water usage on especially hot days. Of course, Forest is totally obsessed. 

I have a feeling he is gonna have a very good summer full of water play! Happy summertime everybody!