Liza Corsillo: Pickleball Shoes and Cow-Print Shorts

I am halfway through a two-part, remote-working family vacation split between Long Island, where my husband’s family has a house, and Connecticut, where my parents live. It has become a summer tradition that allows us to ride the ferry across Long Island Sound with our son, now 3 and a half years old, who loves all forms of transportation.

This year, we have been trying to get him comfortable with swimming, or at least open to the idea of getting into a pool with one of us. He still doesn’t mess with the ocean, except for one particular beach where the tide gets so low it is basically a puddle, and he prefers to play in the sand far from any water. We had some luck over spring break on a trip to the Dominican Republic thanks to a little-kid-size pineapple pool float my sister-in-law bought for him. He loved sitting in it while I held his hands and swished him from side to side. So in preparation for these two weeks in the “country,” I packed that float and got him a swim vest with sharks on it, hoping he might move on to the vest and let me start teaching him to kick and paddle in the shallow end. It’s been going well so far, and I’m looking forward to taking him to swim lessons this fall.