Just add water....

As the one day of Spring in New York City quickly morphs into full-blown summer weather, it occurres to me , once again, how much water is an integral part of my life,.

I was explaining to the girls today that we live right near the ocean, but that many people in this country would have to take a plane to see the ocean. They were downright amazed.

I was a water baby, teaching myself to swim at four years old, thoroughly enjoying baths and showers for as far back as my memory can stretch. I went to politically incorrect Camp Mon-o-co (Camp Monoco, big reservation, we've got the best camp in the nation, beat those tom-toms) in Lido Beach one summer, and have always loved the sea (if only it weren't for all that sand).

The picture up above is me in Acapulco, at about 7 years old, in the midst of a tantrum because my parents were leaving me at the pool in care of my older sisters - and forbidding me from going off the diving board in their absence.

I have another picture of me at about 30 weeks pregnant with the girls, lying in the tub in the only place at that point in time that I could possibly feel buoyant. The nurse at my OB's office warned me against taking hot baths - too much risk of pre-term labor, she said. But water has always soothed and buoyed me...and it was advice I just could not, would not, take.

The apparent result of which is that I spawned two little girls who are happiest, freest, boldest and most spectacularly beautiful when wet. They can literally spend an hour in the tub together, frolic all day in the ocean, and jump gleefully into any pool they see.

We made the colossal mistake of taking them to Disneyworld last June, thinking they were old enough to take the crowds and the heat and the rides and the noise. We wer, of course, dead wrong, and it is destined to be known henceforth as the vacation that will not be mentioned.

But even then, once they were safely surrounded by the blue of the hotel's pool, splashing merrily in their water wings, they had found their element, and weren't ready to get out until the sun came down.

My conclusion: Children , like plants, need water to help them grow..