Anna Ruth has been taking swimming lessons for almost 2 weeks, and she is just now getting comfortable with it. The first few days were painful in several different ways. For one, Anna Ruth screamed bloody murder when it was time for her to go with her teacher. She yelled "Mommy!" over and over, and I know it was scary for her to go to a new place with a bunch of people she had never seen before. It was painful for everyone's ears as they heard the high-pitched screams all the way from across the pool. It was also painful to my pride, as I thought back to times when I have heard somebody's kid screaming and thought to myself "Whose brat is that? Seriously, get control of your kid!" Now it was my daughter making the scene, and I did the whole glance-over-your-shoulder move to make it seem like she wasn't talking to me. Anyway, yesterday she did a complete 180. She didn't cry when she had to go to her class, and she participated willingly in the activities and games. She ran up to me afterward and happily announced, "Mommy, I did a GREAT job today!" So I let her watch 2 movies, take a bath, and chew as many pieces of gum as she wanted to encourage her to keep it up. Today went just as well! She has 4 more days of classes left, and I think she will actually get promoted. Woohoo! Here are a few pictures I managed to snap towards the end of the first good day.
sitting on the edge listening
holding onto the kickboard and kicking
noticing me standing there taking pictures
2 comments:
Movies and gum are our motivators too! Sometimes, if we've been working on a particularly unpleasant pattern of behavior and she's had a couple of victories, I'll break out the "special treats" :). The bath being a special treat cracked me up.
Yeah, I used to be worried that DHEC would take Katie away because she screamed so loudly when we forced her to go into the big pool.
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