Watersafe

When we were little my mom would take us to the neighborhood pool every day of summer. We had swim lessons for the first hour we were there and then we stayed and played all day until we came home for a very late lunch. There was a fence between where the mothers could watch their kids in the lessons and the pool. My brothers would cling to the fence with fingers and toes at 3 yrs old screaming and crying that they did not want to go into the water. My mom would sit stoically shaking her head and say, "Take them into the pool." The other moms sitting around her sometimes seemed shocked at her heartless manner. I am sure they were the mothers of 1 or 2. My mom, mother of eight, and non-swimmer herself, was determined that each of her children would not only become watersafe by age 4, but able to save her drowning self by age 6. I admit, I used to watch my screaming brothers and feel awful for them. I am sure I begged my mother to go save them from the torturous situation she was idly watching with a seemingly cold heartless disposition.

Yesterday, I was that cold heartless mother. My 5 year old has had a water fear for the last couple years. Not just a reluctance to put his head under, or fear of jumping in. No, he would cling to me and shake when we neared water he could not stand in while I was holding him.  This summer, I was done with it. I felt my own mother entering into my skin, I swear, as I drug my 5 yr old into the pool. It began like this: I set up swim lessons with a cute young girl, and I tried to enstill upon her that my 5 yr old was going to need some force, but that he COULD do it (I knew this because one rare day I somehow managed to get him to dog paddle halfway across a lap lane at the Y! There was bribery involved. I knew he had it in him) I proceeded to watch the instructor gently teach him to blow bubbles, float on his back cradled in her arms, and kick while holding onto the side of the pool. The lesson ended and I knew this was going to be a long series of lessons ending with him so proud to put his head under, and I would be no closer to  having a watersafe child.

Back to me being the cold heartless ingenious mother. Yes, I said ingenious, just a bit of foreshadowing. So, we are at the pool playing and I pick up my 5yr old and pull him into the water with me. I throw him towards the side of the pool over and over until he is dog paddling on his own about 6 feet from me to the side. Then I tell him it is time for the watersafe test. A test where he jumps into water above his head, and swims himself back to the side of the pool and climbs out. To say I was met with resistance would be the understatement of the year. He clung to a pool chair at the side of the pool, He sat in the chair and held on. He was amidst sunbathing mothers, crying and clinging to a chair. I grabbed him around the waste, kept my face super calm, and said, "buddy, you can do this." I pulled him AND the chair into the pool. The surrounding mothers were beginning to stare. I flashed to my mother staring through that fence shaking her head. Ben was crying loudly. I said, "Buddy, you can do this and as soon as you do I am going to buy you a slushy, new goggles and any item you want from the dollar store." Weeping, he clung to me as I walked us into the seven feet water. And he says, "I am afraid I am going to drown!" I said, "I would never let that happen to you." Treading water I threw him to the side. He made it fine. I said "climb out and jump in towards me and swim to the side and climb out." He is crying standing on the side of the pool. I reach my hand out and he runs for the poolside chair. I jump out of the pool and grab him and pull him back to the side. I hold his hand and he jumps in, I let go and he swims to the side. Again. I hold his hand and he jumps in, I let go and he swims to the side. Then, I say, "on your own, you can do this." He jumps in on his own and he swims to the side. He is beaming. I say, "Again!" He climbs out, jumps in on his own and swims to the side. We do this at least 2 more times! He says, "I am watersafe now!!!" He is ecstatic. beaming. He can't wait to show his daddy and his instructor.

Later, that day, he says to me, "Mom, remember when I used to be scared of the water?" I am thinking, "Ya, an hour ago." But I say, "Ya, man you are such a big boy now, so great at swimming. Can't wait for you to show everyone." And the true test of success, he bravely showed his swim instructor today. And he has not even mentioned the dollar store or the goggles. However I am so proud of him, that I will be coming through on both.

4 down. 1 to go, Mom.