More on My Fish

I really can't believe that September is here already. Is it just me or did summer go amazingly fast? I know, I'm slow coming to this point. All of you have been preparing for the turn of the calendar page for weeks. But since my kids aren't yet school age (except for RT and he is SO low-maintainance) we don't have any formal transitions to make so it was quite easy to deny that summer was actually coming to an end.

And then? The pool closed for the season.

I can't begin to describe how incredibly happy I am watching Oliver in the pool -- and indeed, how incredibly happy he is with himself. Swimming is the only thing so far in life that Oliver has really wanted to do for himself. It is the first thing that he has undertaken of his own initiative. I don't have to push, praise, cajole or motivate. He is persistant because he wants to figure this swimming thing out. Each time we go to the pool I see him try something new and he tries it over and over again until he gets it right. First doggie paddling, then great cannonball jumps from the side that took him right to the bottom of the pool. Then, last week I saw him relax in the water, laying back, pointing his chin to the sky and slowly letting his body rise to the surface. He did it again and again, each time floating for just a little bit longer. A few days later he was still practicing this new skill -- but the BEST part was that each time he really felt himself floating he picked his head up with a huge grin on his face and looked around to find me as if to say: Do you see me, Mom?

On the last day at the pool he began to let his head slowly sink beneath the surface, eyes wide open, and once under the water he reached for my hands and swam a bit towards me. At first when I saw him going under I thought he was so exhausted from all the swimming that he was drowning and I pulled him back to the surface. But then I realized that he was concentrating deeply, preparing himself, in the seconds before he slipped under the water. (Still, it was hard for me not to want to drag him up!). A few times he even made a break for the diving board which sits atop twelve feet of water! I know he will be ready to jump long before I am ready for him to jump!

Luckily for us, the pool will re-open under cover in two weeks. But I'm pretty sure it will be a LONG two weeks.