Documentation

Sometimes you reach a milestone and you just need to document the event. I don't journal anymore, so my documentation occurs here. I hope you'll indulge me.

We had a milestone event yesterday.

Meaty is swimming!

Yes, I have added another fish to my aquarium.

My son is a special boy. I love him to bits and pieces. But he is also a bit of a frustratingly fearful boy. He doesn't want to try anything new unless he is confident beforehand that he will be good at it. Confidence is not his strong suit. Minor setbacks easily deter him. We've worked hard emphasising the importance of practice to him. But it doesn't seem to do any good. He rarely wants to try anything new. I keep hoping he'll outgrow this little personality quirk.

Now we just KNEW Meaty could swim. We knew he could do it. He's big enough, smart enough, strong enough and co-ordinated enough that he could do it. He just didn't. The only thing holding him back was Meaty. His Daddy has patiently been giving him short little lessons every night. Let me stress the PATIENT aspect, holding Meaty in three foot water, water Meaty could easily stand in, as Meaty shrieks and flails and cries that he's going to drown. At some point, frustrated from watching the lessons, I looked at The Greatest and jokingly suggested we just throw Meaty in the deep end. Well, I was mostly joking.

But yesterday was different. Something in Meaty clicked. Something in his head slid into place and he conquered the pool! Not just above ground swimming, but swimming with his head under water as well. Before yesterday Meaty refused to even put his face in the water and blow bubbles. But not now.

Getting ready with Daddy.

All Set.

Just keep swimming.

Just keep swimming.

Just keep swimming.

So proud!

And he swam all over our pool all afternoon. He was in the deep end. He was in the shallow end. He was above the water. He was sitting at the bottom of the pool. We swam races. He cannon balled. We all laughed with delight and pride.

He asked if we could go to the store so he could get a new pool toy, and I couldn't think of a single reason to deny him a reward. He worked hard, and he earned it! He wanted to go to the store all by himself with Daddy (that only hurt my feeling a little bit). They came back with this.

Predicatably he slept with it last night. As I tucked him into bed last night I told him how proud I was of him.

"Mom, I'm proud of me too!" he declared. And you could see the pride and self-confidence in his eye.

And that is worth a million new pool toys.