Fishy, Fishy

I know that I spend a lot of time venting, laughing and releasing frustrations in my blog, but not today. Today is all pride. Today I want to tell you what it's like for me to see my girls succeed.

We live in Florida and our girls have been in the pool and ocean practically since day one, at least since day 20 or 30 for certain. They've always loved to be in the water, alone or with us, just love to splash and play. For Payton, I think swimming came more naturally than walking, she was literally all over the pool by herself as soon as she first had lessons starting right about when she turned two. That summer she was a swimmer, she'd jump in, swim across and do it over and over again. To be honest, it wasn't pretty, it was actually pretty scary/disturbing to watch, but she could do it and we were proud. That was three years ago, and since then it's gotten less painful to watch, but it still wasn't graceful. Until now. This summer we decided to sign both girls up for swim lessons at the public pool away from their friends and with a new teacher. It was hard to say the least, because Payton's class was at 8 a.m. for 2 weeks, 4 days a week, but so worth it. Payton is a ROCK STAR in the water! Both girls had an amazing teacher, Chris, who really knows how to work with kids. In watching Payton I've learned something about her, she is a pleaser. I guess I knew that before, but seeing her working with the teacher, working so hard to do exactly as instructed, it was so obvious. One day I suggested that she try to rub her tattoo off while she was in the water during class. She set me straight right away, telling me that she has to pay attention to the teacher and can only do what he tells her to. Who could argue. Throughout the class Chris complimented Payton, and it just fueled her fire to learn more strokes and to do them even better. By the time the session was done, he was suggesting we look into getting our little fish into the swim team. And then there's Parker. Parker's struggled more to master swimming, and it's been hard for all of us. She LOVES to be in the water, but being the youngest of the girls in the neighborhood and not having learned to swim, it's always a little frustrating for her. She plays on the steps while everyone else is everywhere, she begs for us to carry her around, she sometimes just plays around the edge of the pool when she gets bored on the steps. She's had lessons before, but she's just never been able to GET it. She gets close, then has a scare where she swallows a little too much and panics, and we're back to her clinging to a grown up. Well, not anymore! I can't even describe the feeling watching her figure it out over the last few weeks, I sit on the pool deck fighting back tears that well up each time I see her. And then she looks over when she reaches the edge and gives me a HUGE grin, and of course another to Chris. It's almost too much for me to take. I'm sure that a few weeks from now it will be old hat to all of us, and we'll forget the days of Parker on the edge, but for now, I'm one proud mama! Scares me to think what's ahead.