Early in the summer, we embarked on a journey that could end soon or could cost me many hours of driving and sleep in the future.
I've mentioned at other points along the way that I am not one of these mothers who is cool with signing my kids up for every activity under the sun so I can brag about all the great things my kids can do or what team they're on this week. Yick! I figure I have all my life to play taxi driver to my crew of 3 who more than likely will one day have to be at 3 different places at the same time. When I asked the boys if they wanted to play soccer this fall, neither acted interested. The hallelujahs in my head were louder than the hallelujahs on the first day of school! To me, there's nothing fun about sitting in the heat watching clueless kids play a sport, especially when two of the clueless kids are my own and I have no way to gauge what their interest level will be from practice to practice. Most people my age didn't play their first sport until they were 5 or 6 and their only option was T-Ball, at least that was the case where I grew up. I fared well athletically without playing group sports at 2!
We have talked about signing the boys up for swimming lessons for a couple of years, but various issues as far as time, moves, not knowing how the kids were going to react or cooperate kept us from doing so. This year we bit the bullet. I honestly went to the first day of swim lessons not knowing whether we would return for day 2! Truly. I was ready to throw the other $80 worth of swim lessons down the tube if the boys were wacko or hated it. Surprisingly or maybe I don't give them enough credit, they both LOVE swim lessons!
I only signed them up for 2 sessions at first and had made other summer plans for the other weeks, but they were so excited about swimming that I worked in an additional session. I think their favorite part of swim lessons was when they get to jump off the side into the pool at the end of each lesson. Both would come running to me, grinning ear to ear, asking if I saw their big jumps! I'm really impressed with their skill level and technique. F6 has great form for his freestyle and backstroke, but his endurance needs lots of work!
I had very low expectations, obviously. A year and a half ago, F4 would not let go of me in a swimming pool. Even with his flotation device, I forgot what we even called it now, he would dig his fingers into my arms and back as deep as he could because he was scared to death. To see him jumping into the pool with no flotation device and able to dog paddle himself back to the side made our investment into swim lessons worthwhile.
So worthwhile, that I made sure I got them signed up for the first fall swim lesson session that we're in the middle of right now. I question my sanity signing these tired kids up for swim lessons at 6:30 at night for 2 weeks during school, but then I remember that it's only 2 weeks and I'm not going to spend 10 Saturdays in a row at a soccer field sitting, along with the several nights a week for 10 weeks going to practice in 2 different places at 2 different times.
If the boys decide they want to continue swimming as their hobby, I'm all for it. Most competitive swimming pools are indoors, aren't they? I'm no dumby! The father of this bunch wants them to play golf, but he will get to chaperone those outings. You'll find me in the air conditioning with a latte in one hand and a hot glue gun in the other!
(Swim Pictures to come in a later post. After writing this, I realized that I have lots of swim video snippets and not as many pictures)
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