Triumphs and Failures Tuesday - Me shark
It's that time again: Triumphs and Failures Tuesday! A weekly post where I share a parenting triumph or failure.
This week, I score a triumph. There are just a handful of life skills I feel are a must to impart to my kids, including how to ride a bike, how to change a tire, how to drive a stick shift, how to moonwalk, and how to swim. And, since we don't have easy access to a manual transmission car, I enrolled him into parent-assisted swim lessons at the local YMCA.
X loves being in the water, so it wasn't hard to convince him to take swim lessons. Indeed, his daycare had recently started twice-weekly visits to a splash pad, so he was already excited to do anything where he got to be in the water, what he called "water play." And, unlike his dad who as a kid had an irrational fear that there was a shark in every pool waiting to viciously attack him (thanks for putting that in my head, uncles!), X loves to pretend he's the shark, putting his hands together on top of his head in the shape of a dorsal fin and exclaiming, "Me shark! Me shark!" So, he was quite excited to hear that he was going to take swim lessons.
When we got to the pool, we were one of the first families there. The sun was just rising, and the pool was serene and inviting. And, while I wanted to wait poolside for the instructor to come, X wanted to get in the water immediately, grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the pool. When we got in at the pool's steps, Xavier had the hugest smile on his face. "Water play! Water play (actually, it sounded more like, 'WA-ta play! WA-ta play!')!" I put him on the first step, expecting him to be satisfied playing there, but he kept climbing down. It was at the third step where his happy face turned into a quizzical look, as if to convey, "Wait a minute, this thing is getting deeper!" But, before he thought about it too much and got scared, I grabbed him, and we played around before the class started.
The class was hectic. First of all, X’s class wasn't the only one in the pool: there was a slightly more advanced class to our left, a water aerobics class to our right, people swimming in the lanes across from us, and a very talkative lifeguard hovering over us. So there was a lot of distracting commotion. Secondly, the class had a lot of kids and parents in it, and there was a lot of chatter throughout the whole class. But it didn't seem to bother X, who was just happy being in the water.
The class went like this: practice getting out of the pool, sing a song, floating on his belly, then on his back, sing a song, dunking his head under water, sing a song. I can't say that X took to it all completely like a fish to water. He was squirmy during the floating exercises, and I'm pretty sure he didn't like me dunking his head into water or when I would incessantly tell him to blow bubbles when his mouth touched the water. But he didn't complain and never cried to get out of the pool--he seemed to gradually get more comfortable as the class went on. In fact, when I asked him afterwards if he enjoyed the class, he nodded vigorously.
Now, I don't expect him to be Michael Phelps by the second class, but by the third class? Expectations are quite high.
