Popsicles fix everything!

This week T is taking swimming lessons. Every evening for an hour, he and I are donning our swimsuits and taking instruction from a crazy old lady, who frankly, reminds me a lot of my grandmother. She is a no-kidding kind of swimming instructor who had us dunk our dear ones under the water dozens of times the first day. There was much crying and shrieking and pleading to leave the pool. To be honest, I almost took T and left about halfway through yesterday's lesson.

I'm glad I didn't. Toward the end of the lesson, Crazy Patty noticed that T kept his eyes screwed shut every time he went into the water. She suggested goggles. Goggles were procured and the change was almost instantaneous. While he still wasn't a huge fan, it didn't take two people to pry his fingers from my bathing suit. After our lesson was over, Crazy Patty and her assistants passed out popsicles. Well. All of a sudden, all was forgotten. When we talked to Ry on the phone later (he's out of town again), T raved about how much fun he had.

I kept pumping T up for the rest of the evening and all day today. "Remember how brave you were to go under the water?" "Want to practice humming with me?" Humming helps the kiddos to keep their mouths closed and air coming out their noses. "Are you excited to go swimming again today?" And I prayed. I prayed that I hadn't made one of those huge parenting mistakes. You know the ones I'm talking about? The ones that leave your child forever afraid of the pool. Then I figured, in for a penny, in for a pound.

And so back we went. We had a rough start again, but goggles in place, T soon realized he could go under the water, see everyone swimming around and come up sans water in his nose. Fifteen minutes in, he was asking to go underwater with me. He swam under water and grabbed rings from the bottom. He jumped off the edge of the pool. And jumped and jumped and jumped. To be honest, he's a jumping-off-the-edge-of-the-pool junkie. We laughed. We giggled. And T didn't want to leave. Until Crazy Patty brought out the popsicles, of course. Apparently, popsicles fix everything.

And thank God for that.