For Christmas, my wife gave me a gift certificate for six-weeks of Aquatots lessons for the–presumably amphibious–Baby Raptor. I was overcome with awe by the sheer brilliance of this gift. Every Saturday morning I would spend probably a total of two hours out of house, wrestling with wet clothes and swim diapers. And my wife would be at brunch. Possibly multiple brunches. Well played.

But in all seriousness Aquatots (it’s important to say it like a little fanfare. A-qua-TAAAAWTS! Do-DO-duh-duh-doo) is a great deal of fun. You’re basically just splashing around with your child singing mildly off-key with them, getting them used to water. One of the biggest challenges is the backfloat. Apparently babies *hate* getting their ears wet. It’s a common reaction for I’m sure the best of reasons. The result is that the middle section of Aquatots generally consists of trying to backfloat the screaming babies while the parent desperately sings “I’m a little pancake nice and flat!” to them. It’s quite the tableaux.

The Baby Raptor is a fantastic backfloater.

She is deeply skeptical of it mind you; definitely staring me down letting me know that she could change her mind at a MOMENT’S notice. But that still puts her in the 95% percentile. So what do I do with this gift? I take full credit and show her off. We wander around the pool so she can “help” the other babies. But let’s be honest: I mostly want the other parents to admire this buoyant baby and–by extension–me.

Of course I am under no delusion that I had anything to do with this future Katie Ledecky. It’s blind luck that she has a mild reaction to the water ear coverage. But the parenting urge to take full credit for anything awesome (while of course blaming the child for anything negative) really is quite overwhelming. I can’t even give any advice on how to help your child float. And I love giving advice! It’s important for me to keep in mind a modicum of modesty when it comes to parenting. So much of it is just like the backfloat; not really up to you or your parenting tactics or the 500 pages of best practices of child-rearing.