I took the kids swimming today.
I forgot how exhausting being in a pool, making sure people don’t drown, is.
Let me rephrase, it’s HARD when you’re “swimming” with people that don’t know how to swim, but that you refuse to put any kind of floating device on, because then they will flat out refuse to swim without said floating devices for the remainder of the summer, who also are falsely confident in their nonexistent ability TO swim.
What I’m saying is that Daniel and Taylor CAN’T SWIM.
Daniel can almost swim. He has a mean doggy paddle, but every now and then (3 feet), he forgets to kick and paddle and promptly sinks to the bottom, because we have also not mastered FLOATING.
Taylor is the worst though. Because she dances around the edge of the pool paying no attention to anyone or anything. I should also probably tell you that Taylor doesn’t WALK…. she PRANCES. Or skips. Or hops. Or my personal favorite, takes a lot of teeny tiny steps on her tippy toes, giving her the appearance of running, but she’s not. It’s just the way she gets from point A to point B. This also means that the lifeguard is constantly blowing his whistle at her and shouting “WALK!” and she looks them dead in the face and says, “Me not running. I just doing this.” and then she starts her not-running run and they tell her to walk. Times eleventy billion.
The pool is hard. Finding the perfect balance of acceptable risk, which changes depending on the mood of the child, is difficult. On the one hand, I want my kids to be safe. On the other hand, I want them to learn to swim dangit.
All I know, is that the pool (A) exhausts us (B) gets us outside and (C) makes my kids feel like they did something. And really, that’s all you can hope for on a Saturday.
Blayne, happily swimming, taken @ Grammy’s house, April 2011
