“Oh she’s almost walking, is she? You’re about to be in for it now!”
A common refrain but not a sentiment I ever shared. That time between crawling and walking is far more stressful than either side of that. Certainly the fleeting period of 5-8 months (or whatever it is) when they can sit up properly and be counted on to stay where you put them is glorious. Crawling was exciting—for better AND for worse—but walking was just liberating. Sure, the go doesn’t always come with a reliable stop, but there’s a lot to be said for not hunching over to stick your fingers between their fingers or making mad dives for whatever piece of unsecured furniture has been chosen to assist in pulling up. Walking was a serious improvement over cruising even if it did mean the baby months were officially over.
Learning to swim is not quite the same thing but it feels rather like deja vu to me. Deja vu with added terror. An even more pressing need to hover and even more dreadful uncertainty as to when the young learner’s newfound skills will suddenly desert her. Falling to the ground is one thing, but the water is something else entirely. I was content to let both my kids bounce off the floor, but large bodies of water are not to be trifled with.
Julia has weekly private lessons (another thing I swore before parenthood I would never do as a parent, but when group lessons utterly fail to teach the first child to swim and you find a local college student to teach her 1:1, you might as well pay them twice as much and give them the younger one as well) and she recently swam halfway across the pool three times in a row. “I knew she could swim!” exclaimed my wife, upon seeing the video, and that may be so, but the feat is yet to be repeated in subsequent lessons. No one can tell if it’s performance anxiety brought on by previous success or an actual lack of endurance, but neither parent is willing to let her flail too far from our arms to find out. Her form is lacking and her confidence is shaky, so by her side we remain with summer fast approaching.
My wife is adamant that she not return to her Puddle Jumper (highly recommend if anyone with a toddler is wondering which flotation device to invest in). It remains to be seen how we will handle watercraft (perhaps it is time to dig out Clementine’s old life jacket) or the ocean (which Julia is loathe to swim in anyway) but I foresee a summer of uncertainty ahead. Clementine was not nearly so uncertain—she didn’t swim and then, suddenly, she did. Or maybe her liminal period was in wintertime so it was less of any issue. Either way, this is all a long way round to say: I am ready for Julia to swim now, thank you very much.
Not Sisters 
I’m with you on the crawling- walking shift. We really need to get the kids back into swim lessons, but have been avoiding due to poor D’s eczema. Sigh. Fingers crossed Julia finds her confidence and comfort in the water soon!
I mean, I guess I’ll take this over the kid who is convinced she can swim but really can’t? Unlike our friend’s daughter (see previous sentence) or Clementine (who developed the skills well before the nerve to execute them), Julia seems to have a pretty good handle on what she can and can’t do. Although we’ve had to bring back the conversation about safe words again since she thinks it’s funny to yell “help!” just for kicks (or no-kicks as water around the lower half of her body would attest). I am optimistic; it’s just another one of those “hurry up and mature along your normal developmental trajectory even though I know I’ll miss your adorably immature self when you do” situations. Then again, I don’t really miss the cruising so…
Yes! We currently have a crawler and I much prefer a crawler to a sit on the floor and sob until she is rescued by a mama. Even if crawlers are somehow always getting into trouble in the open dishwasher (put her anywhere in the house, turn your back and she’s suddenly in the dishwasher. Like a moth to a flame). We have a new swimmer too, we went on vacation with the puddle jumper and she wore it for the first half of the vacation and then swam with surprising confidence sans flotation for the second half. We also have an almost swimmer. If he fell off a dock he could probably keep his head above water for the three seconds it would take for me to toss the baby aside and jump in to rescue him, which is better than last summer when there was zero swimming ability.
Always bring the puddle jumper, because it is nice sometimes to not be laser focused on the new swimmer. And she might surprise you and decide she doesn’t need it unprompted.