Watching: A "Wild Discovery" episode on pythons that I taped last night for Daniel. He is fascinated by snakes. I learned that the reticulated python of South East Asia can grow to be 9 meters long and weigh as much as 130 kg. and that some have actually eaten humans. I don't think I needed to know that.

Blossoms: Some lilacs are blooming. Redbud is particularly pretty right now.

Listening to: Broadsword and the Beast. I'm on a Jethro Tull kick.

Hydrophobia

Daniel seemed fine this morning, so we decided to take him to his swimming lesson. This is the last lesson of this session, but we are signing him up for the next eight-lesson session, which begins this week. I watched his lesson while Tab walked the twins around the Trenton State campus.

Daniel hasn't made a whole lot of progress in swimming since moving up from level 1 to level 2. He floats on his front and his back for five seconds at a time, but only if Ch'han, his instructor, holds him. I was watching him while Ch'han was working with another student. He was clutching the side of the pool, and he had that blank look on his face that usually indicates nervousness.

I turned my head and watched some of the kids in levels 4 and 5. The level 4s were holding onto floats and kicking their way across the pool; the level 5s were actually swimming. I couldn't help noticing how much they seemed to be enjoying themselves. I wish Daniel felt the same way about being in the pool.

I wondered if he somehow inherited his fear of water from Tab, just as he inherited Tab's facial features and body type. I don't think I was ever afraid of the water. I hope that in time Daniel will come to love the water as much as I did when I was young.

After Daniel's swimming lesson we took the boys to the petting zoo at Pennytown, a little complex of shops outside of Pennington. We hadn't brought any stale bread to feed the animals so we bought some corn from the machine for a dime. Stephen and Matthew squealed with delight as the goats and sheep licked the kernels from their hands.

Stephen reached down and picked up a piece of stale, dirty popcorn. He tried to feed it to the goats; exhibiting rare fastidiousness, the goats refused it. Stephen then popped it into his mouth. That's my son Stephen: the boy who eats what even goats won't eat.

Tab and the twins went for a stroll around the complex. Daniel opted out, saying he was tired, so he and I sat on a bench to wait. He lay down with his head in my lap, and I stroked his hair. His forehead felt warm to my touch; I wondered whether he was feeling the sun or whether his fever had come back.

In front of us was a cage with chickens and a peacock. The peacock reminded me of a trip we made to the Philadelphia zoo when Daniel was just a few months old. He was hungry so I found a private little grove with a park bench where I could sit and breastfeed him. While I was sitting there nursing him, I heard an unearthly screech high above. I looked straight up and saw a peacock roosting on a branch about 30 feet over our heads. I hadn't known that peacocks could fly so high.

After Pennytown we stopped at Cream King, a roadside ice cream stand. Tab's father used to take Tab there for ice cream when he was a kid. I asked Tab if he ever imagined that 35 years later he would be taking his own sons to Cream King. "It's one of those 'Circle of Life' things," he mused.

Daniel ate only a few bites of his ice cream and was practically falling asleep at the picnic table. I let him get back into the car while the rest of us finished. He fell sound asleep in his seat and stayed asleep until we got home.

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