Ozzy is eight months old, and we take a Christmas bath in the deep tub at his grandparents’ house.
He is a slick terror, this wet, naked baby, excited about water. He arches back, takes a deep inhale of his bathwater, and comes up baffled. I am horrified, utterly responsible.
I dip my neck to level our faces. Ozzy coughs at me a few times, staring hard with red eyes. Then he turns away and resumes splashing.
I call at his dad with my heart in my mouth.
“Look up dry drowning.” I say.
“What?”
“Dry drowning. It’s a thing. I am freaking out.”
Brad consults the appropriate search engine results, and assures me that dry drowning is very rare, and much more dramatic. Ozzy looks fine, he says.
Still. Do you see the feathers on his soft baby head? The way his neck bunches up on itself?
His skin, and his squeaks, and his fat splashing hands, have me praying the Parent Prayer Universal.
Keep breathing tiny baby. Keep breathing. Forever and ever, amen.
Mighty Girl 