1. Alec falls off the step and tumbles underwater during his lesson. I see his puzzled face beneath the surface, he comes up, and goes down again. I pull him out and hold him close.
His teacher (who he adores) instantly reframes it: "Did you go underwater? Was it wonderful? Did you see the fishes?"
I hold him close, and he scratches at my chest as he often does when he feels he's been injured and someone is to blame. She says: "Look at him, completely unperturbed."
I set him back on the step and he goes back to chewing his sinker. Then: "Mummy underwater. Mummy go underwater." So I duck under a few times, and when I shake the water out of my eyes, he is laughing at me.
2. The dimples on the surface of the swollen river; and the grinning ducks sliding downstream on the racing current.
3. Alec says his crispbread is a bus. Then he bites the corner off and it becomes a cow (I can sort of see it, with its head down grazing).
