Aug 16 2007
Pooling Your Skills (Pic of the Week)
NOTE: Readers of “Off Planet” may click here to read the fourth installment.
Click any pic to enlarge and sharpen.
Earlier this summer, we withdrew Benjamin from baseball because after two good practices he squalled every time we tried to coax or gently force him onto the field. He never asked to play baseball, but we knew other parents who had signed up their nearly-four-year-olds and we thought it might be fun for him.
We were very cute, I’m sure, picking out a glove, a helmet, and shoes. The team sold us the uniform.
Bear with me, this is about swimming.
What it boiled down to was that Ben loved playing dress-up, but didn’t care a thing for baseball. Let’s see, we never watch baseball at home, we never play baseball at home. It didn’t surprise us that Benjamin, with a history of not being a team player, hated practice and was completely indifferent to the two games that he played.
Unlike baseball, swimming lessons were important to us and had measurable practical value. At the very least, one can measure whether or not a child drowns when he or she falls into water.
Ben’s grammy has a pool and loves to take him in it. Let’s get him some skills. Yeah!
Swimming lessons went pretty much the same as baseball. He did okay at the first one or two, but then self-destructed and never went back.
Just like with baseball, we tried ice cream rewards, donut rewards — you name it, the positive reinforcement vibe was strong.
Despite all that, the boy had no interest in doing what everyone else was doing. Not one bit. This frustrated me and made me proud in the same moment.
In subsequent months, he’s spent lots of time in Grammy and Pa’s pool, and quite a bit in a couple others, and can move himself across a pool quite nicely with just his water wings (or swimmies, or whatever cutesy name one wants to assign).
I’ve found it’s easy for me to love the pool, too, when temperatures are still above 90 degrees at 7 p.m. and Pa has a blue-ribbon homemade chicken piccata waiting for us. Getting in beats sweltering, hands down. Or up, or wherever you hold them. It’s still damn hot.
Recently, freshly four Benjamin took his first plunge off the diving board. Below are his second, third, and fourth jumps, presented here to look like just one (actually, the second and third are from the same jump, when I remembered to just hold down the shutter).
The tiles beside the pool were hot enough that he couldn’t walk on them, so he swam to the edge and let me lift him directly onto the board.
He was courteous enough to wait for me to get into position for the pics. (Don’t worry, both Grammy and Mommy were close by in case of emergency, and I’d gladly jump in with full Nikon regalia hanging from my neck.)
Click for high-dive version.
That’s our boy! So freakin’ stubborn, but look how adorable! I mean, are his eyes the same color as the blue pool water or what?
Whoa, great actions shots!
p.s. - floaties :)
Great pics…. especially the first one.
Have you or Shan taken it up on yourselves to help in teaching him how to swim? Maybe he’d just rather learn it from you two.
Have a great weekend…!
Jay, I’m with you - floaties all the way!
The action shots are cool…hovering child and all. But that top picture is stunning. He looks like Shannon in that shot.
And I’d probably go with floaties too.
Wow - “stunning” & “looks like Shannon” in the same thought? You just made my day, Moksha!
Yay! Back to Regular Life, and everybody’s still reading.
Except Simon. Pardon him, folks, he’s Canadian.
But, wait, Jay’s Canadian, too, so maybe I should say Simon’s Canadian and male. There.
I am still here too reading! Those diving board shots are great! Can you say “Ben found his happy place?”
:) Have a great weekend!
Baseball or swimming? Of the two activities, swimming was something I accepted more than baseball. I never played baseball until I was nearly seven. A medical condition sidelined my opportunity to play baseball in elementary, junior high, or high school. I did not like baseball much, so I never tried to pursue it later. Swimming became something that I enjoyed although I was never involved in any school teams.
The part that I disliked the most about baseball was striking out nearly all of the time. The phrase “If first you don’t succeed, try, try again” would not apply for me in baseball especially when most of the time I would either strike out or get called out. Practing was no help. I was very offended in junior high when we played baseball and the coach would joke with the students as me being an “easy out.”
Personally, I came to dislike baseball as the years would go by. My Mom hated the game too because the losing team in her P.E. classes years ago would have to run laps. Guess who ended up on the losing team EVERY TIME?!
Looks like Ben has found his niche. He sure looks comfy in the water! What blue eyes!
“floaties” ??
Nah… they’re water wings. Always have been. Gorgeous shots, either way. Must be the quality of the boy in the water.
Thank you, Mark, for apologising for me. It’s something we do on such a regular basis, you know, just in case there’s the chance that we’ve offended somebody, or might soon offend somebody, or our thoughtless inaction offends somebody at some point in the future and we never know about it! Best to apologise in advance, just to cover all the bases.
Good shots.
Hey, I’m 37 and I still don’t know how to swim. So there….
OMG, Hi Alvis! However are you???
I guess I shouldn’t be socializing on Mark’s nickel… ;-)
Don’t you just love how little kids smell when they come out of the pool, and the way their skin feels?
That’s a really great pic of Ben up there. So colorful.