On swimming...

So far we're having a great time, but our vacation has been nothing if not loud.  An oft-whiny four-year-old combined with an even more often and more screamy two-year old PLUS a 15-month old who caught his cousin's cold (of course he did!  we're on vacation!) equals very little quiet time.  Add to that a grandma with both a keen garage sale sense and a high tolerance for noisy toys and we're basically vacationing in a cacophony of chaos.

My two child free siblings keep disappearing downstairs.  I wonder why?

And then there's the swimming...

I'm just going to come right out and say this, but I basically hate swimming.  When Alex was a newborn I read a story about some parents who took their two-year-old kid on a house boating trip and while they turned around to unload the car each thought the other one was watching the child and he slipped silently into the water and drowned.  It took them two hours to find his body.  So in spite of being a relatively decent swimmer myself and honestly not EVER remembering a time when I feared the water or couldn't swim, one of my most pressing and psychotic parental fears is DROWNING.  It's even worse than my postpartum fear of accidentally leaving Genoa in the hot car (remember that? good times!).

So when I'm in the pool with my kids, I'm basically a mess.  I might look all happy and fine on the outside in my giant skirted bathing, but I can't breathe and inside, I'm Freaking Out.  And then there's the wet hair and the chlorine and the not being able to see because I took my glasses off and the splashing and the dry skin and yeah,  I'm obviously no fan of swimming.

Naturally, Alex fears the water almost as much as I fear his drowning in it.  Last year he fell under for approximately two seconds and it scared him and I overreacted and somehow that experience has been growing exponentially in his mind.  It was literally NOTHING, almost a non-event, but it has turned itself into a Fear with a capital F.  Even after four whole months of twice-weekly swimming lessons, he basically spends the entire time we're at the pool sitting on the top step wearing a life jacket and refusing all of our requests to hold him in the water.

Yet he BEGS ME ALL DAY LONG to go swimming.  It's his favorite activity and it honestly breaks my heart a little that he won't actively participate in something he loves so much.  The child would take a two-hour bath in our big tub every day if I let him, but he won't step into my parent's pool, where the non-event happened, not even up to his knees.

Yesterday I got him to let me hold him in the middle of the spa for about ten minutes.  I told him it was time to get out of the pool (you know, off the top step) and he didn't want to go, so I said, "Fine.  If you let me hold you in the water, we can stay."  So we did and he was fine.  And now you know my strategy for getting him over this fear.  Step by step I'm going to threaten that pool time is over.

Genoa, on the other hand, could not be more opposite of her brother.  She wants you to pull her around the pool, wearing a floaty or not, while she blows bubbles in the water and kicks her feet.  Yesterday she kept jumping across the spa between my sister and me, not paying a lick of attention to whether or not we were there to catch her when she jumped (we always were, obviously, but still!).  She put her face in the water (up to her nose) and got her hair wet and let us hold her so she could float on her back.  She has absolutely NO fear whatsoever and I love it.

So in spite of my fear and my obvious distaste for the activity, I suck it up and take my kids swimming because they love it and I love them.

Comments

[David]

I think pools give all parents concern. I recall my parents waiting until my younger brother was in the 4th or 5th grade before installing our pool and even then, it was in a partitioned area of the yard sectioned off by a large nine foot high steel gate that once resided in front of the vault at a bank. My father, being concerned about children climbing over the yard fence, even built a two foot extension onto the existing six foot high fence that was around the pool.

The CDC tracks deaths and causes broken down by numerous variables. For 2005, with respect to unintentional deaths for children 2-5, the following are some rates of death per 100,000 children:

Motor vehicle - 3.41
Drowning - 2.11
Residential fire - 1.17
Pedestrian - 1.17
Suffocation - 0.41
Natural/Environmental - 0.19
Falls - 0.16
Firearms - 0.14

3/4 of the drowning deaths occurred in residential settings.

[Audrey]

My sixteen month old has NO FEAR of the water and that actually worries me. It scares me that she will see a body of water, remember how much fun it is, and enter without even thinking about it. I was slightly reassured on Saturday when she wanted to stomp in a big puddle and looked around for me - and my hand - first. But, after I told her that she couldn't go in it, she was totally ready to enter, Mom or no Mom. We've done the YMCA swimming lessons, but truth be told, at her age, they aren't really lessons. We'll keep doing them because she loves the pool, but I will feel more comfortable when she's older and can actually learn some swimming skills.

And about that houseboat story: our friends took their two year old and four month old on a family vacation on a houseboat last year. Thank god, nothing awful happened, but I don't think I would have been able to enjoy myself AT ALL with kids that young on a houseboat!!

[Christa]

My 15-month-old cousin drowned in her grandmother's swimming pool on July 19th of this year. Totally traumatizing. I'm not a fan of the water myself and my own mother-in-law lives on a lake, where the pier and lake are about 25 feet out in her back yard. My 3 & 4 year old boys spend a lot of time there, and like your children, also adore the water, so obviously we are way over-protective of them, especially after the loss of little Maddie. So I HEAR YA loud and clear on this subject, sister! It's kind of like sticking an infant in a room with a rottweiler...anything can happen. I've worked in the emergency department at our local hospital now for about 7 years and you would be surprised at the circumstances that determines the fate of children. One can never be too cautious.

[laura]

okay so i also have this fear and my almost 3 year old girl has no fear which makes my anixety even WORSE, yet she can swim pretty well and has so many devices on i can not relax until we are done swimming. my 17 months on the other hand hates that water and secretly im kinda glad. at least i wont have 2 Evil Knievls on my hands. i will take snow anyday!

[Jenna]

Get Alex and Genoa swimming lessons! My friends kid is Evie and Alex's age and can already swim really well by himself - after just 4 weeks of lessons! Then you wouldnt have to worry. We joined the JCC and all the kids younger than Evie put us to shame because they are diving and swimming underwater and stuff. I feel so lame, so we are starting in the fall so I can relax in the water.