The Family *roll

We have been spending a lot of time at the pool this past week. Eleanor really likes the water, although it’s not clear that that is the main attraction at the pool. She seems equally, perhaps even more, content exercising her new walking chops on the adjacent grass and, more inexplicably, playing with the mulch around the nearby birches. In any case, the whole pool complex causes her to literally squeal with delight when we turn into the pool lot.

We tend to split our time between the real pool, where we glide Eleanor through the water or throw her into the air, and the toddler pool with its 1 foot of water. The toddler pool. The safer option, right? Well, as we discovered the other day, 1 ft of water is enough to cover a prone Eleanor. In a sit-turn manoeuver gone horribly awry, Eleanor managed to entirely submerge herself in the toddler pool. Of course, we were right next to her, so we got her out lickety split. She was shocked, and then upset, but a few minutes later she was happily back in the water. No harm done. Until she woke up the next morning, eyes welded shut with yellow goop. Chemical conjunctivitis. Caused by, amongst other things, excessive exposure to chlorine. Amazingly, Eleanor is entirely non-plussed by the yellow effluvia flowing from her eyes and, two days later, it appears to be clearing up of its own accord. But for two days she looked, as Emily put it, like a 19th-century street urchin. I prefer “pus-Zombie” (she kind of walks like a Zombie). Not pretty.

In other developments, Eleanor is clearly developing a will. There was a time not long ago when, if Eleanor had something she shouldn’t have or was playing somewhere she shouldn’t be, we could sub an appropriate object/place with the inappropriate one without so much as a squawk from the babe. No more. Now, if her plans are thwarted, she lets us know, sometimes by collapsing on the floor and, well, kicking and screaming. I assume this is just a phase which will pass in a matter of weeks. I mean, that’s why it’s called the “Terrible 1 & 1/12ths” right?