You might think 30 minutes of sitting on the bleachers watching your child sit nicely in the water, following the directions that the swim instructor hands out sounds nice. For many parents it is that way, myself not included.
You have to learn the tricks of the trade to run this night smoothly with my children.
This particular 30 minutes every Tuesday and Thursday night tend to be a tad exhausting for me. Its not just the 30 minute lesson I have to worry about we have to start with prepping for it. At least an hour before the lesson starts I have to begin. I get out our swim bag, then we need to find bathing suits, if I had time to live a more organized life I might know where they are each week, but I don't. Where they go after each swim lesson, I don't know. So yes each time we are finding swim suits. Now 2 towels, 2 water bottles and 2 small snack bags for the ride home (swimming does in fact make you hungry). Flip flops for each child because honestly by yourself with two small children trying to put on socks AND shoes, other single parents will know, enough said. Then pajamas for both children, as well as appropriate attire for the outside weather, fall swim lessons require coats and hats, otherwise you have wet heads catching colds thus creating more work for yourself in the future. If I am on the ball that can all be found in about 30 minutes. Why so long you ask? Single parent+full time job= mom doesn't put laundry away. Then 30 minutes to drive to the pool and change into swim suits.
Now I will be the first to admit my dear sweet son is a bit over energized. Don't get me wrong, its not an ADHD type of thing, he hears you, and he can sit still, he just chooses not to. I have learned however with the right amount of threats as well as reward possibilities for good behavior I can get him to listen almost the entire 30 minutes now. My daughter is easy in the lesson, teachers favorite and listens well. Which is great since my son is still a bit over enthused in his lesson. Because of his enthusiasm which is what I like to call his crazy behavior, I now take a chair and sit on the side of the pool directly in front of him. The second he starts to get all crazy dunking himself down into the water acting like he knows how to swim instead of just learning, I just have to raise my finger and give him the look, which on most nights works. The nights it doesn't work he is pulled out and sits whith his arms crossed while his sister finishes her lesson.
Thank goodness that's over right, probably just reading that was exhausting. But we are not finished yet. At this point my son has mellowed but my precious angel is getting a second wind. While dressing my son I am constantly telling her to stop swinging on the bar above the bench, that this locker room is really not a gymnastics practice area. Changing can take up to 15 minutes. Then the jabbering all the way to the car which includes, can I have french fries? can we get hot chocolate? I am thirsty, oh look a playground can we go play? At this point silence is the best way, I just don't acknowledge that they have actually spoken and I then easily avoid argument until we reach the car and load up. At this point snacks and water bottles are given and I have the lovely silence with just a touch of Gardetto crunching the rest of the way home.
Pro Status.
Naturally I am a competitive person. I know to stay away from video games because like any teenage boy I could sit there for hours shooting people up until I win the entire war single handedly in Call of Duty, then proudly brag about doing it on the internet. I want to be the best. At sports, at work, at school, in all I do I want to do better then the guy next to me. However my competitiveness sometimes gets the best of me. It’s a hard lesson to learn to let go. I personally get mean. I do get carried away, mostly when I am provoked though. I am going to say it, my poor children I kind of pity them for having me as a mother. I will be that parent screaming at the top of her lungs at sporting events and possibly getting kicked out of games. It may come to my children lying about their games being cancelled one day so I don’t show up. It has already started.
Mommy and Me Gymnastics just got real.
My daughter is two and I have signed her and myself up for parent child gymnastics. She loves rolling around and swinging from the bar in my closet so I thought this will be a fun way for her to get her energy out. She did it the previous year, which she enjoyed but she was the only one in the class. This year things changed. Day one, three girls including my daughter Brielle were in the class, one was 18 months old just toddling around. The other little girl was three. Upon entering the class waiting to begin I notice the three year old girl had an older sister, probably about 8 waiting to join the next class for older gymnasts. I also noticed her mother and father sitting there. The three year old was in a leotard matching her older sisters, and I thought what? This is baby gymnastics but ok, next week we are stepping it up, the sweatpants were out! Already I was getting competitive. Then class began. As these were small children they had 3 large different colored rubber circles for each student to sit on. I asked my daughter which color she would like and she chose green. She ran over to the green dot and sat while the 3 year old girl and her mother moved to the blue and the baby to the yellow. We did some stretching and warm up exercises which Brielle did so great at the teacher praised her a couple of times (already I was feeling so proud) then the teacher instructed us to start at the beams. The year prior Brielle had took an interest in the bars and proved to do well on it. So she asked me if we could go to the bars. The mother of the 3 year old overheard her ask and looked at me confused then said "oh bar as in over there, not bar as in for beverages" Uh yeah, like I take my two year old to a bar . . . this lady. We went to the beam where we were to start instead. This lady had her little girl walk across the beam clearly she had been doing it before practicing with her sister probably, she did well. As Brielle stepped on the beam she was wobbly and stepped off a few times. The woman looked over at me and said "Maybe she has been at the bar" Really? Then she asked her daughter to walk across the beam on her tip toes. Ok. Ok. I said lets go to the bars Bri, come on lets go. BOOM my baby has skills too and some serious arm strength at two, wanna show off lady lets show off, mommy and me class just got serious. The teacher then asked the children to find their same colored circle again. Brielle told me hers was green and ran to it. While the other mother proceeded to ask her daughter what color her circle was over and over. She didn’t know, which was fine shes still a baby. So as I walked by I leaned down and sweetly said hi hunny, your dot, its blue. Then I smiled at her mother and sat nicely behind my child. I can’t wait until next class.
