My kids recently have been getting "bigger" and I couldn't be prouder of them or happier about who they are becoming as people. It was funny, but today's Ian and Lexi's swim lessons was a "real look" on how they are doing as individuals.
Lexi is getting brave, and trusting in others more. This was more apparent while she was swimming as today was the first day she was jumping off the wall and swimming back and forth with her head in the water, looking at the teacher's toes, and then up at the sky. She went further than ever before by swimming the entire length of the pool. She was brave before, but relied on us to take care of her, but now she is branching out. Beforehand she told us how excited to go she was and it was really awesome to see her take one more step towards a big girl.
Ian is the awesome big brother, still looking for praise often while accomplishing things, but also very aware of helping his sister. When asked to help Lexi jump into the pool, he couldn't have been more excited. Now hours later Ian is still asking Lexi if she'd like to jump in the pool and that he'd hold her hand.
Ian also had a bit of a rough patch today where he had to swim 100 meters, and do it the proper way. At first Ian started to cry when walking over to the "big pool". I think he might have felt a little alone so I tagged along (I normally don't come and at the time Lexi is still playing in the pool so Momma doesn't get to come either). I would have a lot of trouble doing what Ian was about to easily accomplish, it would take me about 20 minutes and everyone would be laughing (not that I'd care, I suck at swimming). Jackie, of course, always glides through the water, and that's what I started to see from him. It was truly awesome to see it start to click together.
After a few strokes Ian stopped his crying and started to swim down the lane. He would pop his head up to see if I was watching, at which the instructor told him to concentrate on the swimming, not on me. I would follow closely so that when he turned on his back he would be able to see me. With that he did the entire pool and then the other child appeared late to start the lesson, so it was time for another pool length.
No crying this time, it was a race. We usually race up the stairs and you could tell already that Ian was wanting to "win". Winning right now is something that I'm trying to teach softly. The basic underlying meaning is that sometimes you don't win, and that's just fine, but you need to try so that you can excel. Ian and the other child went about half the pool together and then Ian started to look like Jackie on his turns with rapid acceleration doing his big arms. In the end he won, and we waited for his other friend to win as well and got in the other pool.
The rest of the lesson was tear free and even afterward Ian got into trouble for wanting to do more big arms, something we didn't want to punish for, but it was time to go and he didn't get out of the pool before the count got to 3. Lexi, seeing that her brother was in trouble decided that she would share her prize, some chips, with brother and Ian was ok again. What great kids.