What would you do?
Its the last day of swim lessons which you have had for 8 weeks.
You have been on a journey from the beginning.
We started with death grips and screaming.
Not jumping without hands, not wanting to go under the water for anything.
Holding on to the teachers so tight with your hands, not brave enough to show your "big arms."
Not jumping off the diving board without holding on to your teacher so tight that they probably cant breathe.
Not even walking on the diving board without someone holding you.
To this....
Of course there was a conversation started yesterday to get to this point.
Dad "If you jump off the diving board by yourself, I will let you pick out 5 different flavors of ice cream, let you eat ice cream after breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and you can get a slurpee"
Mia "I dont want to im scare"
Peyton "im going to do it all by myself"
So when the time came
Mia stepped up and jumped right off to her teacher
She even swam back to the edge of the deep pool all by herself.
This going from not just 8 weeks ago not letting go of her teachers hand which was holding on tightly to Mia's waist as she was crying and screaming "please dont let go, please dont let go, I dont want to go under water"
Now Miss Peyton...
Miss "Im going to do it, im brave, i have no fear"
Well this is how it started...
First she walked half way and then needed a little help from the lifeguard.
He had to help her off the diving board.
But then...
We had a little talk with Daddy, renegotiated the terms and was ready.
You can see the determination on her face
She was ready, She was going to do this, all by herself, she wanted that reward.
But then she saw the edge, she saw her teacher, she stopped.
She was trembling, she was cold, she was scared.
She didnt want the lifeguard to come and help, she wanted to do it herself.
She was close a few times too, but Mr. Lifeguard came and gave her a little push
and
she jumped
Then had death grip on her poor teacher, Peyton didnt like that too much.
But since she did try twice, she gets two flavors of ice cream and a slurpee.
I am so proud of how far both girls have come in terms of swimming.
Everyday was a big step towards being able to swim, and
mom and dad having more confidence in their abilities.
