Swim lessons

I had last Thursday and this Thursday off work (and I'll have next Thursday, too), so I offered to pick Rachel up from camp, take her to dinner and then zip her over to swim lessons, take her home and put her to bed so Drew can get some time in at the gym, which he really needs and appreciates when he's able to go.

Last week Rachel and I went to Elevation Burger, her favorite burger place, and she wasn't in the greatest of moods. Today was much better; she was cheerful when I picked her up from extended day (although a fleeting look of annoyance crossed her face because she was deep in the middle of a book) and we headed to the burger place. We had a nice talk about her old preschool in Portland, and I talked about the first time I ever took her to day care, when she fixed her eyes on me as I said goodbye and gave me a long, long, stare, like "It'll be a long time before I forgive you for this," and then I started crying, and the day-care ladies said all the moms do that, and when I picked Rachel up at the end of the day she was fine. Perhaps we will pay a visit there when we head to Oregon in two (!!) weeks.

Then we went to swim lessons -- Rachel has a lovely backstroke and is very comfortable in the water; she loves jumping in -- and things were going great until Taylor, her teacher, told her she had to practice putting her head underwater. She put her goggles on and did it, but she kept swallowing water and dipping her head in and out instead of really trying to swim at length beneath the water. She was getting more and more upset, and Taylor and I kept encouraging her, but it was clear she wasn't happy. When she got out and I put a towel around her, she refused to talk to me. "Do you know how much water I swallowed and got up my nose before I learned how to swim?" I asked her.

We walked to the car in silence, she buckled herself in and pointed to her book, which I had put in the front seat. "No," I said sternly. "I'm not giving you this book until you ask for it, using words, not like a little baby."

Then she burst into tears. "What are you upset about, sweetie?" I asked. "I CAN'T DO IT!!" she said. "I'M TERRIBLE!"

"You mean swimming?" I asked. She nodded, tears streaming down her face.

"Rachel, you are NOT terrible," I said. "I'm not just saying that. Not everything is easy; you're not going to just quit, are you?" She shook her head.

I explained that things may come easy at first, but then you hit the hard part and you just have to push through it. Reading is easy now; soon it'll be hard -- not the words, but the concepts she'll be studying. And addition, subtraction and division and multiplication may come easily, but that math will get harder too, "and the people who really succeed in life are the ones who keep trying and push through the hard part until they understand it." I said. "I know you can learn to swim, Rachel. You just have to keep at it. I've never lied to you about anything, and I'm not lying to you about this."

Someday, I added, she'll be swimming under the water so easily that she won't even remember a time when it was hard or scary. And I intend to remind her of this day when that day comes.