L has fallen in love with water this summer. Among her favorite sports to watch in London are swimming and diving; she asks daily to go to the pool; she flops about in the tub in her best imitation of Rebecca Soni. Despite her consistent love of water, though, she wasn’t that wild about the beach when we first went. Or when we went the second time. So when we headed to North Carolina with friends for a weekend at the lake, I was a but curious how she would take swimming in the open water.

As might be expected, she was a bit cautions at first. Thought she’d given up her arm floats earlier in the summer, she learned that one of the rules of the pier was that children must always wear flotation devices — and since there were no more swim belts, the Girl was stuck wearing her arm floats again.

There was also initial concern regarding what else might be swimming with her — or under her. Talk of an enormous catfish that broke a line earlier in the day had her worried and sitting on the edge for a while.

But only for a while.

Thus began a weekend of firsts. Fishing, for example — something that requires more patience than I thought the Girl had ever shown in her whole life. Something that involves touching things the Girl might not like to touch, like hooks and worms and fish. Something that can pass hours with only one reward: the peace of the wait.

Yet the girl is growing, and she’s always surprising us with what she can do, what she’s willing to try, what we can force her to eat. (Some humor intended there.) Fishing became the big hit for the Girl.

Yet there were the old stand-bys — what kid in history has been able to turn down an invitation to watch a film while sitting in an old water heater box?

Cramped, stuffy, view-blocking — it didn’t matter. What mattered was to be in the box. The movie was only secondary entertainment.

With a full moon that night, though, adults had other forms of less-cramped, more serene entertainment.