My oldest takes 45 min+ in the shower. Now, you ask me what-in-God’s-name could a seven-year-old possibly be doing in the shower, and I answer: drying her face off. She’s horror-struck by water. The moment she gets a drip of water on her face, she gets out of the shower, dries her face and then gets back in. My “aha!” moment when I opened my latest water bill; by fronting the cost of swimming lessons, I could cut my water bill by 50%!
I enrolled all three Things in swimming lessons at our local YMCA. My lovely little children behave in the water just as they do out of it, for the most part… The baby has been dubbed by her teachers as “The Fearless Evel Knievel”. This child has outright refused to swim with a noodle, jumped in deep water without permission and has blatantly done her own thing – swimming about like a fish, when the instructor’s back is turned. I see swim teams in this one’s future. My son lives up to his OCD’d moniker, “Monk”. The water temp. needs to be just so. He can only get in this way. He may only swim about like this. He may only doggy paddle after the blue balls. And in precisely that order.
Now, my oldest is where it gets interesting. And by interesting, I really meant dumbfounding. We do not make eye contact, lest it mistake disdain for compassion and begin screaming louder. [Let me state this child has never been water-boarded, never been dunked, never given any reason to irrationally fear water to this degree.] Her teacher is patient & kind, and I pray – stupid enough to let us re-enroll her. This child is VERY excited every Friday to go to her swimming lessons. She professes her love of swimming. *Loudly* All. The. Way. There…
Then, she enters the pool. What happens can only be described through the colorful narration and your imagination, “Picture an epileptic in a pool with a strobe light in the middle of a rave.” She convulses. She screeches. She coughs. She feigns gagging. And at this point, she’s only stood in waist deep water.
Recently, my good friend was subjected to this traumatizing event (and by traumatizing event, I mean: I’m scarred. I shall never be able to sleep soundly again!). Said friend is watching Evel Knievel sass her teacher, when I lean over and whisper, “Hear the screaming? Don’t look – but it’s been forced into the deep end.” I had been conscious, but ignoring, the blood curdling screams of my oldest in the deep end (for over five minutes by my count) with nothing to save her except a noodle and her own moxie. There was no way this was going to end well.
“OMG! Is someone drowning? Why aren’t the lifeguards moving?” It then dawns on her where the shrieking was coming from. She looks at me with a slightly concerned look of mortification. “Is. That. Her?” Oh yes. The terrifying wailing coming from the deep end was the knee-jerk reaction of my petrified child. I was then informed I should double my payments to these people. The thought *had* occurred to me.
Lessons are done. Kids are dried and changed and heading to the car to go home when the oldest turns and informs us all, “This was such a great week. I swam in the deep end. I love swimming! It is so much fun!” Kid, if that herky-jerky wretched movement you’re doing is called swimming, I think I need to demand a refund. Someone sold you a bag of goods …or at the very least – a shoddy strobe light.
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