Our neighborhood pool opened May 1. On May 1 it was a toasty 65 degrees. I made the mistake of telling Drew exactly when the pool would open. You know, the week before when it was in the 80s. He was heart broken when I wouldn't let him do the polar bear swim!!!
Finally, yesterday, the stars aligned and we made it to the pool. I've mentioned before about the ratio-you know the one where you try to decide if you are going to spend more time getting ready for an activity than you actually spend on the activity itself? Yes, well, I'm always fighting the negative thoughts when it comes to the pool. I dream of a day with school-age children who will swim for hours and entertain themselves while I peruse a magazine. I'm just certain those days are right around the corner. Right? RIGHT??
All in all our trip to the pool was successful. It does look like I'm going to have to let go of my dream of having olympic swimmers in the family. Oh. Wait. I don't have that dream. But if I did, I'd have to let it go. Because I'm pretty sure they don't allow a duck floaty in the Olympics, and I can promise you Drew has ZERO intention of ever swimming without it. It's going to be pretty embarrassing on senior trip...
The kid loves his floaty (it's the kind that buckles in the back and has arm floats and a chest float) and will swim all over the pool in it. He even braved the rough waters of pre-teens playing some weird made-up shark game. (I will mention that their parents were nowhere to be found. They were probably back home enjoying an adult beverage and catching up on Tivo...) However. He will have NOTHING to do with jumping in the water-even with his floaty on. He decided to be brave and "go under". This consisted of putting his head sort of under the water-he didn't even get all of his hair wet. When he "emerged" he said, "Whoa. It's like the depths of the ocean under there." Bless his heart.
I did finally cajole him to take off the duck floaty and give his superhero kick board a whirl. It was not pretty. Panicking and swimming are not really a good combo. Here's the real kicker-he could TOUCH where we were in the pool. He just couldn't quit freaking out long enough to put his feet down. (I'm pretty sure there's a spiritual lesson in there for me somewhere...) So, before any emotional damage was done, we put the duck floaty back on pronto.
Meanwhile, little sister was not really impressed with the "wah" [translation: water]. When I tried to put her in her float I'm pretty sure the neighbors were picking up their phones to call the authorities. She protested like I was putting her in a human torture device. So, she and I sat on the side and she threw toys in for Drew to chase. And splashed her feet around a little. And to be honest, I was pretty ok with it. The pool hasn't exactly had time to warm up to any kind of humane temperature just yet.
I've decided that swimming lessons have risen to the top of the summer priority list. Magazine perusing has fallen all the way to the bottom.
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