On parenting.

Ok, you'll say, get the hell out of town already. Tomorrow. I am getting ready to tackle the huge pile of laundry. I am hedging, no surprise.

It is funny that after a good hard swim, I find it hard to be sad. Even if I want to be. The June gloom didn't even bother me, with the steam rising off the water and blowing in billowing wisps. But first I took care of many a motherly duty.

Like: Signing my child up for kindergarten.
OMG. I am not this old. I have a child in elementary school. Crikey... (is that how you spell it?). So sometimes I am down on my parenting skills, but mostly I know that I am a really good mamma. I fail in many other aspects of my life, but she is certainly my light in the darkness. Even when I am too tired or beaten down for other things.

So I observed all three kindergarten classrooms and spoke to a few people, finally requesting the teacher who I think will be most suited to I.'s needs, which are few, being as sociable and well-adjusted as she is. No I haven't forced her to read yet, though she writes several words and is expressing an interest in the printed word. As horribly perfectionist and self-critical as I am (which is quite in a league of its own) I made a deal with myself that as a parent I would not put my fears, hopes or inadequacies on my child. And I think that thus far I have succeeded. I figure that she will find the things she loves, and I am only here to offer her options. This is something of my philosophy on teaching as well.

So, my agenda as a parent is limited to making her feel like she is the most treasured and beloved human-cub that ever was...

But I wavered yesterday. Or rather, I went against my own philosophy for a brief moment, but not without rewards. We arrived at the pool mid-afternoon, and I. wanted to run straight to the children's area. Problem is, if we go there I get horribly bored and no exercise whatsoever. She splashes around, and we play games where she climbs over me, and swims under and around me... but I am left wanting. So the first thing I did, seeing that there was a lifeguard at the diving area was to make a bee-line for the depths. I. was interested until she saw how deep it was, and then became frightened when the guard said she needed to take a test to be able to swim in the area. I tried acting excited, you know, the "hey, this is gonna be so much fun!" approach. No dice. She kept walking away from me as I tried to cajole her. "It's really not that deep (17 feet, c'mon)" and "Isabella, you've been in this kind of pool before." and even resorting to bribery, "Do you want mommy to not bring you to the pool anymore?" This produced quite the opposite of the desired result: her curling up on one of the lounge chairs in a pout. "I don't want to come here anymore. Quiero ir a casa..." I negotiated, "Sweetie, mommy wants to get some exercise too, look, you don't have to take the test. We'll go in together, you can hold on to me... come..." That was a command. Finally she was convinced to sit by the edge and dangle her feet in the water as I dove in and swam back, she looked down at me, her smile returning, no pouting, playful splashing. "Come in..." "I'm not ready yet." "Ok," I flipped backwards off the wall only to return seal-like, taking her hands in mine. "Come on, mama will hold you." She let herself be pulled into the water and after her head was immersed, I pulled out the tricks. "Do you want to jump off the board?!" Energetic nodding. "Well, you just have to take the little test so that they'll let you do that. I'll swim across the pool next to you, but you can't touch me, or the wall. ok?"
So it was agreed and as the guard administered her first ever skill-based examination (I didn't worry about her failing because I knew she could do it) Isabella paddled all 25 yards, and then after catching her breath she tread water for a minute. Now the very ironic part of all this is that she then swam non-stop for the next hour and a half, but somehow that first lap seemed like a huge landmark, pivotal in her development. And I couldn't help feeling just a little sliver of pride that I had been the one to teach her to swim back when she was just barely three. "Right, mama, this is like my swim class. But who is going to be my teacher?" "I am, silly goose." "Oh, I forgot."
So lesson two was how to dive and we practiced non-stop, climbing in and out of the pool probably about 50 times. (It has been years since I went off the board, and I only got up the gumption to do straight diving, front and back. Next time I will do an inward dive and then maybe get the gall up to do a 1 and 1/2, but my center of gravity has shifted from those days, so I better prepare for a face plant). I modelled correct form, showing her how to hug her ears with her arms and point her fingers towards where she wanted to enter the water. There were quite a few bellyflops involved but she didn't seem to mind.
This morning before I dropped her at school she said, "We're going to the pool today after school, right?" And I agreed. She elaborated, "But we're going straight to the deep pool so we can do more diving!"
Ok, so I am guilty of wanting her to be brave, braver than I, to be less afraid of failure or rejection, more willing to take calculated risks. We can try to improve on one little thing, can't we? That's not really cheating, is it?