Swimming Babies

I've spent a good deal of my life babysitting or hanging out with kids, but it wasn't until I was about 24 that the full force of the responsibility of keeping another person's most precious possession alive hit me. After that moment, I became the moderately anxious babysitter who convinces little tykes with slippery socks that it's super fun to wear bike helmets in the house while running. I worry about their wobbly frames, and their ability to remain upright, because if either of these fail, their little mouths/teeth and/or noggins are certain to feel the possibly irreversible consequences. That's what I worry about when kids are just WALKING AROUND. Put a swimming pool in the mix, and that kiddo is getting an inflated body suit, no questions asked.

Needless to say, when I saw this video I was anxious.

It takes a little while for the baby to actually fall in the pool, so I spent more than a minute preparing myself to be horrified, but then the most amazing thing happens. The little incapable, ingenuous bugger becomes a thinking, responding, ingenious example of a grown human who has only some control over his extremities. He kicks his little legs and swings his tiny arms with what seems to be a fully formed comprehension of the laws of motion and balance, and then, when finally on his back, he begins to cry until the father returns to fish him out (which is far too long for what this training video requires, if you ask me).

Babies can learn to not drown. I wonder what else we can teach babies to not do so that babysitters such as I can rest a little easier while on duty.

"Goodnight Billy Moon"

Christopher Robin Milne called himself Billy Moon. "Moon" is what "Milne" sounds like when coming from the marbled mouth of a child.

He was supposed to be a girl named Rosemary.

He grew up with nannies and scheduled time to see his busy parents after breakfast, tea and before bed, where he told them stories of his adventures with his friends - his stuffed animals and toys.

Before he was ten, his parents stopped spending time together, so he scheduled separate time with each of them.

His father cataloged his childhood through little known stories you've probably never heard, "Winnie the Pooh."

He liked the stories at first, for they were his, but the kids at school started to make fun of him, and he grew to resent his father for sharing his stories with other kids.

By the time he tried to join WWII, he resented his father for sharing his childhood adventures with the whole world. They were no longer his.

He could never forgive his father for that, even in 1956, when his father was near death and there would be no one to feel the consequences of Billy's resentment, he visited Alan only once.

A few months later Billy had a daughter named Clare - she had cerebral palsy.

With Alan gone, Walt Disney had his hands on Pooh by 1961, and for Billy all was lost.

His mother refused to see him, and she died in 1971.

Billy owned a bookstore with his cousin/wife for many years.

Billy suffered from muscle weakness, Myasthenia gravis, for many years.

Billy died in his sleep in 1996 on April 20th.

Here's a link to a comic with the saddest Christopher Robin, Goodnight Billy Moon.

Here's a little preview.