Sydney Marie Stewart and Baby James are taking private swimming lessons this week. Syd took last Summer but is working on improving her skills and her little brother is making a splash for the first time.
Both kids cried, just like every other child we’ve seen taking lessons but the good news is that last year Syd learned to swim in 4 days. Baby James will be a swimmer by tomorrow and Syd will be on her way towards trying out for the Olympics! Perhaps this is an overstatement of her skills but she loves to be good at everything…and with practice she’ll be a good swimmer.
As we were driving to swimming class, Syd was crying and begging not to swim, saying that BABY JAMES should take the lesson and she’d just wait in the car.
She was negotiating as hard as she could. She had a variety of offers such as she’d agree to float on her back and would swim to her teacher’s fingers but she just didn’t want to dive for the plastic rings that are put on the swimming pool steps. Perhaps if the RINGS had been JEWELRY instead of PLASTIC, she probably would have gone after them!
In between sobs, she made a number of offers but we told her she needed to talk to Gwen, her swim coach. Well, Syd did negotiate and Gwen let her skip diving for the rings. We’re waiting to see what Syd negotiates for herself for her 3rd lesson.
When Syd let me know she was going to cry at her 3rd lesson, I told her that was okay and we’d understand why.
Gwen is a great swim coach and has certainly put up with children who’ve cried more, some who have been put in the pool kicking and screaming and even a kid who bit her. The only way that Gwen could get that kid to stop biting her was for her to bite him back!
Love, D2
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