Quite the Accomplishment

Swimming...

I had my son enrolled in swimming lessons when he was 6 months old.  A mix of my family being very involved with boating (I was a member of the Crew team at my school), we have a cottage on a lake and we are pretty much always around water in the summer along with the fact that swimming is quite plainly, a survival skill was part of the early exposure.  It also didn't hurt that one of my best friends didn't learn how to swim until she was in college and I saw how hard that was for her.  I saw the fear of not being confident in the water.  I spent time in the pool with her as she was learning to swim and always thought that I would not make my child deal with those challenges (however, it was definitely awesome she overcame her fears and though not a great swimmer has had a good time going to the pool with my family).

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My son did great in the water at 6 months old.  He was doing Awesome!  Then... he developed an irrational fear about getting water on his head and in his ears.  My husband doesn't exactly like getting his face wet, and quite frankly, I don't enjoy it at all times either.  But unless you have some type of medical issue or abnormality, the normal human ear can clear water just fine.  There are some dogs that when they go swimming, it makes them more prone to yeast infections from the moisture, but simply using a drying agent prevents this.  My son never had much trouble with ear infections, I think he's had maybe 3 in his entire life.

This fear of getting his head wet lasted about 3-4 years.  Finally I was able to get him interested in going underwater with some water rings and when I worked with him with watching the fingers I had under water and counting them.  He started having fun with that.  So he would go underwater.  We have done so many cycles of swim lessons with my son, I can't even count.  I gave his swim teacher the Starbucks free refill Christmas cup one Christmas when he finally learned how to swim ( a little).

I can safely say that my husband and I have spent more than I want to remember on swim lessons.  I've probably spent over a thousand hours in the pool with my son.  While I like swimming, I don't like it THAT much.

I especially don't really like him jumping in the pool and splashing all over me.  I don't really like going to the pool in the middle of winter (although sometimes it's so warm I can almost feel like I'm on a Caribbean vacation if I can ignore the noise and smell).

Needless to say, both my husband and I have sacrificed for our son to learn how to swim.  We were hoping that this summer, he would pass the "Swim Test".  It's a test where they have to swim 25 yards unassisted in a pool that is 7 feet deep.  Which, considering our son is about only 42 inches long is a pretty long distance.  I'm pretty sure I didn't have to do that when I was a kid (our swim lanes were at the most 3.5 feet at at least some point).  We tried to enroll our son in extra private lessons, which became difficult with a busy summer.  We just kept getting in the water.

So, what's the big deal about the swim test?  Well, until they have the swim test, wherever they are you need to be within 10 feet.  I'm not one to really abandon my kid anyway, but when I'm in 3 foot water and he's in 1 1/2 foot water and it's 95 degrees, I kind of prefer to be in water where most of my body is covered...  There's also two water slides at our pool that are only open during the summer.  They are two stories high and there's a life guard at top and a life guard at bottom, the bottom where you land is a pretty small area that I can touch in, but has a strong current.  My husband and I enjoy doing the waterslide, so we will switch "custody" back and forth to take turns.

I've been talking to my son about passing the swim test and the freedom that would give him and he'd be able to go on the waterslide.  Not motivated.  As a matter of fact, I couldn't get him to swim more than 6-8 feet without putting his feet down and touching bottom, or turning around and swimming back to me.

We've been trying to get a pool day together with my son's friend for a while.  He is the youngest of 6 kids.  He has a sister who's about 3 years older than him and a brother who is about 5 years older, they all play together pretty well.  The older siblings needed to do the swim test to be able to go on the water slide.  My son's friend had passed a swim test at his pool (not as long a distance, I think) and being the youngest, wanted to keep up with his siblings.  I thought, well, my son probably won't pass, but it will be an experience and he will get to see what to work up to, plus, if the lifeguard was already testing 3 kids, it wasn't wasting his time to test another.  I asked him if he wanted to do it, he said yes.  I assured him that if he didn't pass, it was totally fine, just a goal to work for.  I told him if at any point he struggled, he just had to reach for the wall.  Reaching for the wall would finish it though, and he wouldn't be able to try again.

He watched as each kid did the test, the oldest did it super quick, second oldest not quite as quick and his classmate, not too fast.  He didn't share his nervousness and I tried not to share mine.  He tried to get into the pool with the ladder and not jumping in like he normally does.  I reminded him he had to swim wall to wall.

He got in and he went.  I cheered him on because I know he loves to be cheered.  The lifeguard went to reach the lifebelt out to him a couple of times because he would stop, tread water, breathe and then go on.  He was 50% through his 25 yards, than 75%.  He took some pauses, treading water and by the end of the lane, even the life guard was cheering him on.  Chanting his name.  He came out of the water cool as a cucumber, "Of course I knew I'd pass," he told me.

I was unprepared and didn't take a picture of him as he finished, but I did take a picture of him the first time down the water slide.

His friends and him went down the water slide constantly, to the point I had to stop him because I could see he was getting exhausted.  I did catch him, coming down the water slide, singing to the tune of La Cucharacha, "I passed the swim test, I passed the swim test."  He was slightly embarrassed when I told him I heard him.  "You have nothing to be embarrassed about, what you did was quite an accomplishment."

I told my friend that I should have paid her the money instead of the swim teachers, because the peer pressure of her kids is what got my son to take on the challenge.

It's also a lesson and reminder for me- no matter how much work and time you put into a goal for your kid- it's up to them.  Often it's also up to their friends.  Peer pressure is powerful.  I'm praying it's powerful for the good and I'm reassured that at least at this age, I still have a little role in picking his friends.

Because Life Can Never Be Easy...

After a wonderful trip to Michigan to visit family and spend some time at the family cottage, we headed home.  Recently we've been doing something that might be counterintuitive.  We haven't been going on trips and getting home Sunday after 12 hours of driving to get up and ready to go to work about 7 hours later.  We have been getting home Saturday night and spending Sunday putting away stuff, reading through mail and having a little time to just get mentally ready to be back from vacation.  Sometimes no matter how great a vacation is everyone needs a vacation from a vacation.

So we got home Saturday night and my husband came in with a puzzled look and he said, "Because Life Can Never Be Easy."  I hesitated to ask for explanation, but I knew it was coming.  "Both of our remote controls to the Subaru aren't working."

Well.... After living in the temperature extremes of Michigan and Arizona, I knew the problem was likely not the little key fobs.  "Go try to start the car," I told him.  He came back even more puzzled.  "Nothing."  "The battery is dead", I told him.  This was after about an 11 hour drive and we were hungry for dinner.  "Well, I'm not calling AAA now, we can deal with it tomorrow," was my response as my stomach gurgled.

We had had a hot week, but the car was only two years old.  I was betting on the 6 year old.  I was praying that the battery wasn't gone for good and it was just the matter of a 6 year old bopping the light on when it was broad daylight so it wasn't easy for me to see and it was left on for over a week.

We ate food.  I realized my parents had given us something to jumpstart a car at one Christmas or another.  My husband realized his parents gave him something that didn't require us to put two cars together, an easy starter.  It's amazing how a little food and rest can actually give you ideas!

The next day, after Mass, we went to try to start the car.  It worked.  I was never so happy to randomly drive around on the expressway after a long trip the previous day.  It appeared that my hypothesis of the 6 year old was correct.  As soon as the car had battery power, the rear seat light lit up.  The relief.

Two lessons from this experience- always give yourself an extra day and always check the interior lights, even in daylight before a long trip.

The Canine Underground Railroad

My son has had an interest in the Civil Rights movement for a while.  Whether it's Harriet Tubman, Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks or other heroes, he's had me read and re-read about them.  He takes an interest in this subject and I don't mind supporting his curiosity in understanding historical injustice.

There is a different form of "Underground Railroad" that I deal with on a daily basis.  It's obviously not as serious as the commonly known underground railroad of over 150 years ago.  But it does exist.

Every day, I see multiple dogs that have come up from the South.  Be it Georgia, North Carolina, West Virginia, Alabama or Texas.  The Northeast of the USA actually has a shortage of rescue dogs.  I know a lot of people who wanted to rescue a dog but found it very difficult to do, so just bought one from a breeder instead.  I know people who have adopted dogs from Korea and the Caribbean.

The population of dogs in the Northeast is largely spayed and neutered.  There aren't many dogs in shelters here that are a breed people want to adopt (small dogs or labs or golden retrievers).  Many people and their landlords have a bias against Pit Bulls and Pit Bull-type dogs.

Overnight, most days of the week, there are trucks that come up from the south bringing puppies, adult dogs and even some senior dogs for people to rescue.  Some of the rescues are great.  Some are possibly a little more dubious.  Some actually make money off of the process.  Some of the dogs are healthy, some are not, some bring infectious disease, especially heartworm disease.  I'm all about rescuing dogs.  I think it's great these dogs get a second chance in a place where they will be spayed and neutered and vaccinated and not struggling to make it in the wild.  Ever

yone should have an awareness though, that sometimes these dogs are not healthy and could come with additional cost and care that were not discussed, either because the rescue was not aware, or because of other issues come up.

A statistic that is interesting is that 100,000 dogs a year from Oklahoma and Texas go to Colorado.

A case of canine rabies was reported in the United States in a dog that was brought from a farm in South Korea to the U.S.

Be educated when you adopt a dog that is not local.  Consider adopting from your local shelter.