Having formerly spent 6+ years of my life working with an elite group over achievers - who I still love dearly - it always boggled my mind how they coped. How their parents coped. How they maintained 4.0 GPA's while playing the flute, running track, being president of the yearbook committee, playing varsity volleyball, church choir, volunteering at animal rescue facilities on Saturdays, showing lambs in 4-H and showing horses competitively around the country while applying to Stanford and Harvard with a smile networking on Facebook and blogging regularly every day. I admired them. I secretly looked up to them - I'm lucky if I can manage answering all of my emails in a single day. Every day. Consistently.
I feel like our kids are so over-scheduled. But that's me.
I struggle with how I feel about really young kids playing soccer and t-ball and the likes of other team sports at such a young age. There are a lot of working parts in team sports. A lot to know about the game. My Brown Eyed Girl finds it frustrating just changing her Barbie's dress by herself and she dresses herself everyday.
I have always been a competitive person. I hope my kids are competitive in life. Setting goals, working hard and obtaining their dreams. I think a little healthy competition is good for the soul. I hope they play sports like I did. Like Handy Man did. But I question if they can handle the pressure of winning and performing - at 4.
A lot of my Brown Eyed Girl's friends are enrolled in extracurricular activities and have been since last year. Some of them participate in several different activities. Dance on Mondays, Soccer on Tuesdays, Swimming on Thursdays... and they are FOUR!
The kids talk about their activities. The parents talk about what they do or don't have their their kids involved in. Every time I find my self getting pulled into the conversation, "We just signed Billy up for t-ball and Sally is in dance and tumbling every week." I find my self asking a lot of questions and feeling like I need to validate why my Brown Eyed Girl has not been enrolled in dance since she could walk and Spanish classes every Tuesday for the last 6 months.
I feel like I have to validate why she's not... and every time I over analyze that word - validate - I wonder if in reality the parents are validating themselves. Through their over-scheduled children.
Regardless, my Brown Eyed Girl as started asking about "lessons."
Specifically, swimming lessons.
While I hedge on jumping on the extracurricular band wagon, of all the activities for her to deeply and passionately dream about doing, swimming lessons, is actually the most sense-able. It's a life skill. It is a skill that saves lives. It makes sense.
So after a little dialogue with Handy Man we both agreed that swimming lessons was a smart, reasonable activity for our Brown Eyed Girl to try.
So we signed her up for "lessons."
The swimming facility offered her a free assessment to place her in a class that was right for her.I thought that was brilliant (que insecure first time mother personality)
Meet her state of the art swimming facility...
Heated.
Indoor.
Salt water pool.
Little waiting room for parents and siblings and a large glass window for viewing.
Amazing
My Brown Eyed Girl's excitement quickly changed to nervous jitters as her name was called and she had her assessment day.
Within a few minutes she was warming up and showing off her skills. Top notch skills obtained from 45 minutes in a chilly bath where mom or dad forgot she was still in the tub while watching tv and unwinding after dinner let her play a little longer.
I proudly watched, snapping pictures for the baby book, smiling ear to ear as I watched her swim with the teacher one-on-one. No need for the shirt folks, you can spot this first milestone mom from a mile away.
Her best demonstration of skill...
Jumping in the Pool!!!
In fifteen minutes, my Brown Eyed Girl was done and she was told she was able to skip level one, Goldfish, and move right on to being a Sea Horse!
Whoooo call an Olympic coach and lets get this girl signed up for 5 day a week private lessons. Handy Man rev up the tractor we are putting in a pool!
She loved her assessment and was very excited to start lessons. Every Tuesday for 30 minutes this little sea horse is learning to swim! She is learning to float and survival swim. Because swimming is a life skill. It saves lives. And it's fun.
And someday she will be an Olympic swimmer.
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