Swimming Lessons

This is what happens when you have a stubborn little drama queen who doesn’t want to do what she is asked to do, and she has a mom who is even more stubborn and mean than she could have ever imagined. 

 In our infinite wisdom as parents we made the monumental decision that our 5 year old girl would take swimming lessons this summer.  My husband’s mother bought a house with a pool and Jacuzzi, which is both awesome and scary at the same time.  In order for this to be a safe circumstance the young girl must learn to swim, and she has a long history of refusing to do things for mom and dad, but will for a complete stranger.  Thus the decision of swimming lessons was made.  We found a place in town that offers them for $70, and they run every day for 10 days for 45 min each day.  I went down, signed her up, paid the money, and thought of a reward that she would get at the end of the 2 weeks…Legoland water park, just me and her.

 Day 1 came and went without any problems and she did very well, I started to believe this was going to be easier than I had expected.  Day 2 was almost over when she was asked to put her face in the water…we hit complete meltdown.  Wailing and gnashing of teeth was putting it mildly…but it got worse, much worse. 

 

 I first tried spraying her face with the shower that evening…we were in the shower for over an hour.  There was screaming, and crying, and sobbing, and attempts at bribery (I offered her Princess Luna).  All the while my son was having the time of his life spraying us with the shower.  Finally we accomplished her face sprayed twice…then she crashed in bed.  The next day, being the 4^th of July, there were no lessons…at the gym.  We went to Gammi’s pool where Dad and Gammi did their very best to get her to even go into the water…after 30 min I had hit my limit of what I could stand.  I was watching out the window while giving my son a drink and all I saw was her standing on the step shaking her head “no”.  That was it, I could take no more!  I walked out there, let her go to the bathroom, and when we came back out I put her goggles and nose plugs on and walked her right into the deep end of the pool.

 At this point I did a lot of counting to 3 and telling her to hold her breath…about the 6^th time in she finally started holding her breath when I got to 3.  Of course in the meantime I am pretty sure that she could have been possessed by something evil because she not only kicked me and called me names and said she hated me and that I was the worst mother in the world, but she also tried to bite me!  I am really glad that we were in the privacy of my mother-in-law’s back yard, because I am positive that if anyone else had seen that I would be greeting CPS at my door.  It is really hard to explain to an outsider why you deal with your child the way you do…especially when it seems as though you are trying to drown both you and her.

 For those who still think I am the worst mother in the world, please know that before we got out of the pool that day my daughter told me that she loved me and went under the water willingly.  We returned to swim class and my baby girl willingly went under water, and even doggy paddled with her face in the water!  She gave me a card that said “thanks for teaching me how to swim.”…So after several days of guilt I cried!  I will keep that one forever and ever!

 Swim classes finished triumphantly with me having to drag her out of the pool, because she wouldn’t come willingly, and at some point in the next few weeks I will be taking her to the Legoland Water Park as her reward for finishing.  My guilt is gone and I am very proud of my stubborn little girl.  So here’s to all those hard things we have to do as mothers, may we not appear to be abusing them every time that we have to assert our decisions!