Tag: my girls

Summer Fun or Bust

I have started this post several times today and nothing is working.  Summer vacation has us in it’s humid and sticky grasp, rendering the best of intentions into nothing more than shiny, sweat-stained puddles. 

It hasn’t even been a full week and I need a vacation from the vacation.

The girls are doing some mini camps this week; a few activities that I think they will enjoy.   Sometimes I’m right, most of the time, not so much.  Mo is enrolled in a 5 day lacrosse camp, just 2 hours a day.  Yes, it’s summer. Yes, it’s hot. To hear her tell it, you’d think she’s one of those Temple of Doom kids, working in the mines instead of outside, growing strong and confident in her athleticism. Trying to explain concepts like “privilege”, “fortunate” and “gratitude” without staging a full on after-school special is challenging.

Several posts ago, I mentioned that I was going to try to not over-commit.  Aside from the couple of activities that were already on the calendar, I was looking forward to just taking it one day at a time and seeing where the highways and bi-ways of the River City took us.  We haven’t got much beyond the circuitous route of home-YMCA-home-library-home-swim practice-home. 

Somewhere in the back of my head, I thought that if I had a less regimented summer schedule,  I could be one of those parents that just throws the kids, some snacks, and a devil-may-care attitude into the car to spend the day exploring. 

But I’m not that kind of mom. I’m pretty sure I’m hardwired against being that kind of mom.  I don’t think I have those kinds of kids either, primarily because I’m not that kind of mom.  We get in the car and it’s a Battle Royale of who will sit where, who is touching whose book/leg/seatbelt, and why there aren’t any snacks (No, Mom, I mean good snacks).

Smiling faces, excited faces rolling along the road.  It’s a fun fantasy to entertain.  
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I imagine us laughing along to silly songs on the satellite radio. I toss back washed, organic fruit and chubby bottles of water, which my girls gleefully catch mid-arc.  The baby is in high spirits, having just awoken from a well rested nap, as we end up at the zoo/museum/botanical gardens/(and dare I dream) the beach.  Our house, just a postcard in the rearview window, we’ve set out for memory making with our good humors intact and run up the car antennae like our house sigil. 

And yet.  . .

The sun is shimmying down below the horizon tonight as we wheel up the driveway from swim practice.  The girls are crabby and water-logged.  The baby is a 20 lb. red welt from where the mosquitoes have taken nibble after nibble on her irresistible thighs and arms.  The coffee that powered me through the after-lunch lull is dragging me to the finish line of the bedtime routine. 

They’ll be fed. They’ll wash and dry.  They’ll put on their pj’s inside-out or backwards and simply shrug when I point it out.  Nature’s Vitamin D coupled with the sheer fact of being 7, 5, and 1 will wring them out like sodden washcloths.  They’ll resist bed, as is their role.  I’ll insist on it, as is mine.  I’ll tuck them in, and re-tuck when they get up for one more book or one last trip to the toilet.  The lights will go out,  though the sun will still peer through the blinds, an all-seeing eye.

In the twilight of the day, I’ll sit outside with a sweating glass of water and think about how to re-calibrate things. How to change my attitude? How to change theirs?  Can we be free-wheeling and foot-loose, traveling down the road, sharing snacks, busy-bags and memories?

I don’t know, but I’m certainly going to try.

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IN: ON: June 11, 2013 TAGS: , , , , BY: Hilary
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That Time V Turned One

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(hgd photography)

I read once that the first birthday party is really for the parents.  After spending any time on Pinterest searching kids birthday parties, there is a crap ton of information that supports that claim.  From the decorations to the themes, to the party favors and the food, some of these One Year celebrations are enough to qualify for a reality show of their own.  Did anyone else see the Marie Antoinette First Birthday?  You think I’m making this up, but truly, it’s real.  Kudos to the mom who created such a féte; it’s really something to behold.

When Mo and Co each turned one, we kept it simple.  Family came over. We ate, we sang, we let the girls eat cake.  So, too, this is what we did with V.  My parents came, my brother, my father-in-law, and V’s godparents.  We had burgers, and chicken, my grandmother’s potato salad, and cupcakes that I did not make.  I know! Shut the front door on that one, but yes, I decided to forgo getting all Betty Crocker and let Pearl’s Cupcakes do the heavy lifting on this one.  We had home made iced tea and cold beers. It was a perfect summer meal on an overcast and slightly rainy early summer day.  We sang the song and the girls helped V blow out her candle.  I made vodka tonics for the grown ups, while my brother made drunken gummy bears for me and him to share.  We ate. We laughed. We talked. The girls disappeared to watch TV while V napped.  We ate again. We laughed some more. We talked even more.  The party came to its natural end, and everyone was sufficiently sated with fellowship, food, and fun.  The girls reappeared, looking for dinner and trying to stave off bedtime.  So we ate again and laughed some more.

After even had returned safely home, after the girls had been bathed, pj’ed and dropped in their beds, the house was quiet again.  The Hubs thanked me for pulling together such a nice time for our family.  I know it was V’s birthday, but I think with those simple words, I’m pretty sure I got the gift.

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IN: ON: May 20, 2013 TAGS: , , , , , BY: Hilary
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Keeping It Real

 *disclaimer* My children are not bullies. They are not being bullied. I am fully aware of what is going on at their respective schools and with their respective classmates.  There is nothing to be aghast about. I’m giving you an abbreviated version of a conversation that I thought was funny. No child had their feelings hurt in the making of this post. **  By the way, that last line was sarcasm.

The other day, the girls were talking about how to resolve differneces on the plyaground. Mo was telling me about a child who likes to play with her and several other little girls, but has a tendency to dominate the playing, trying to change the game and boss the others around. 

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“Tell her that if she’s going to do that, she can’t play with you all any more,” I told her.

“Well, we can’t tell people they can’t play with us. The princicapl said so,” she replied.

So, I said,   “Then tell her that whatever it is you guys are playing, she’s welcome to play, but if she doesn’t like it, then she should play something else.”

“Maybe. . ” Mo said, which is basically her way of saying, “Yeah, I’m going to pretend that you didn’t said anything and just do what I want to do.

Co decided to offer her take on how to handle the situation.  “You know, Mo,” she began, “when I was have a problem with Suzy Q (not her real name), I just tell her that I don’t like how she’s treating me and then I walk away from her.”

At this, I looked up from what I was doing because, 1) I noticed she used present tense, and 2) Co had just gone to a birthday party for Suzy Q not that long ago. 

“Wait a second,” I said. “You and Suzy Q are still having an issue? I thought you guys were friends.”

“Nope. We’re not friends.”

“But you begged me to let you go to her party.”

Co gave me a full body eye roll, which for her fun-size five year old frame is pretty huge.  “Mom. I don’t really like Suzy Q, but I really, really like birthday parties.”

Oh boy.

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IN: ON: May 17, 2013 TAGS: , , BY: Hilary
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False Start

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I have started to write this post three times already today and am just not getting it done. I started to write about how 42% of mother’s have Pinterest related stress, but once I wrote that statistics, I thought, “I can believe it.” Then there wasn’t much else to say.

I thought I’d write about my current challenge on this photo-a-day thing I’m working on, but it came off as really whiney and an invite to a Hilary With One L pity party.  That got scrapped immediately.

Then, I thought I’d do a Mother’s Day recap, complete with the blow-by-blow of my day, my meal (which I failed to snap a photo of), my gifts and so forth.  It was a good idea until my conscience sidelined me with thoughts of “Fake-booking” and “Insta-glamming”.  This is a thing now you know, creating these utopian images and status updates for Facebook and Instagram that portray you in a nothing but a rainbow dappled light.  I know for some folks, what you see is really what you get — the kids getting along nicely, a chef style meal prepared at home, a fantastic outfit for a fantastic date or ladies’ night out.  Other times, what you see couldn’t possibly exist anywhere but on the pages of Pinterest or Tumblr — the kids getting along nicely, a chef style meal prepared at home, a fantastic outfit for a fantastic date or ladies’ night out.

I kid, sort of.

delete. delete. delete.

I thought I’d write about what I know.  True story: I know a little bit about a whole lot.  That post was just a bag of crazy with a dash of no direction thrown in for flavor.

I looked at the date and realized that May is just about half-way over.  Huh! The girls will be getting out of school for the summer in three weeks. 

Holy crap-cakes.

I mean, I know they get out the first week of June. I’ve got it written down.    When I looked at a calendar and saw that’s about three weeks, okay four weeks, away, as the young kids like to say, “Shit just got real.”  Three weeks!   That’s gonna happen real, real soon.  For all my previous proper prior planning, I ain’t got nothing this time around.

Again, I kid. Sort of.

I’ve got some things lined up, but it’s no where near the activity filled fun-fest that was last summer.  Maybe that’s a good thing.  Maybe instead of being constantly involved in this, that and the other, we’ll just keep it fast and loose.  They’ll do a few camps here and there, those 9 to 12 type of deals, as well as VBS.  After that, who knows.  Maybe we’ll hit the zoo. Maybe we’ll do the fountains at the mall.  I’m even toying with a day trip to Chick’s Beach for old time’s sake, though the last time I did a baby at the beach, I only had two kids and at least half a dozen other mom’s in my playgroup to run interference.

In my head, I hope our summer will be kind of lazy. I see us going to the pool and the library. I see the girls running through the sprinkler and learning to ride their bikes (finally).  I see faces smeared with popsicle juice and arms slick with bubble solution.  I see skinned knees and legs dotted with mosquito bites.  I’m seeing walks around the neighborhood, catching fireflies in a washed out pasta jar, and lots of chalk drawings crawling across our driveway.  There will be barefeet, sunkissed faces, and halos of pool scented hair.  There will be trips for ice cream, trips to the mall, trips to the museum.  Friends will come over. Bedtime may even be pushed back.

Who knows, maybe some of that will happen. Maybe none of it will happen.  I’m pretty sure if my girls got a hold of that list, they’d do it all on the first day — before lunch — and then ask, “Now what can we do?”

This time, I’m not kidding. 

Guess I better get planning.

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IN: ON: May 13, 2013 TAGS: , , BY: Hilary
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Rock with You

My  mom often talks about how, when I was a baby, she never got anything done becuase all we did was “play, play play” all day.

I never really understood that. 

I’m a mother three times over and playing is so not my thing.  I build a tower out of blocks, someone knocks it down. I build another tower out of blocks, someone knocks it down. I put the blocks in a box, someone empties the box on their head, then bangs the box on their sisters head.  My Barbie’s have no conversational skills and their backstories are lame.  Don’t even get me started on fairies, mermaids and unicorns.  Coming up with detailed CVs for a realm of imaginary creatures must have been the creative writing class I missed that one time.

When the girls ask me to play, I pawn them off on one another. “Go play with your sister!” is a favorite refrain.  Not as popular, but just as common is , “Why don’t you play with your sister so I can finish up [insert chore], and then we’ll all play together!”   They haven’t picked up on the fact that the second part of that nugget is just misdirection on my part. 

I’m at home with Vivi a good portion of the day.  We sort of play together.  I get down on the floor with her and push the blocks around or make the stuffed animals dance. She’s young enough still that I’m not required have a character spreadsheet and blueprints for the cardboard castle we have yet to build.  I know the time will come when the girls will be beyond playing and into things that firmly tether them into the tween-age world.  When that time comes, though, while playing may be part of it, I know one thing that I’ll readily miss even more.
 
Now that strep throat is in my rearview, I’m ready to get back to tasks at hand.  This morning was a rough re-entry as Vivi decided to have a few middle of the night wake-ups.  I was getting REM sleep in short 2 hour bursts, followed by the Hubs with an early morning wake-up of his own.  The girls claimed they had just closed their eyes when I went to rouse them and burrowed back under the covers like moles when I flipped up on the lights.

We made it through the morning routine. Kisses were given, backpacks and lunches handed over, and the day got underway. Vivi and I hit the Y, run a few errands and head home. It’s barely 10am.  We get home, she’s all smiles, as am I, since I know a nap is in her future.   I try to take the snack trap away from her so I can dislodge her from her carseat, and let me tell you,  Bruce Banner ain’t got nothing on her.  She set up a yell so loud and so gravelly, I checked her pockets for a bullhorn and some Newports.  Seriously, I couldn’t get us in the house fast enough for fear that someone in the neighborhood was going to come walking around the bend and tell me to “stop pinching that baby”.  Now there’s a southern eupehemsism that I’ve heard repeatedly when clearly, pinching is the least of the baby’s problems.

In the house we go. I set her up in her high chair and hand back the snack trap. On the floor it goes. I hand her a sippy cup. She takes a few pulls and tosses it over her shoulder like it’s a red solo cup and she’s at the frats.  So, I unbuckle her from the seat, get a Cheerio crusted baby slap to the face for my trouble.  She leans in as I pick her up and  gives me the Harvey Fierstein of baby cries in my ear. Again.  Somewhere in this house there’s a pacifier and I must be on the good list today, because I easily locate it.  I pop it into her mouth, gently pressing her head to my shoulder as we start up the stairs for her room.

Typically, I’d just plop place her into her crib, pull up the blanket and moonwalk out the door.  Today, however, I needed a few minutes to regroup myself, so I settled us into the rock-a-bye-chair.  We’ve had this green glider since Mo was born, but it’s always been dubbed the rock-a-bye chair because that’s what I called my rocking chair as a kid.  I sat back and started us on a gentle glide.  The repetitive motion was soothing for both of us because soon, Vivi had stopped whimpering around the pacifier and I stopped enumerating the things that I planned to do.

We rocked and we rocked.  I stroked her hair and marveled at how quickly her legs had grown long enough to be folded under her to fit comfortably in my lap.  She had one arm draped across my own, her fingers curling into the sleeve of my shirt, anchoring herself to me, even in sleep.  We rocked and we rocked.  I rubbed her back and noticed how my the span of my hand took up the distance between her waistband and the nape of her neck.  Her breath came more evenly, as the space between the ragged post-crying breaths grew longer and longer.  We rocked and we rocked. I inhaled her baby scent, so easy to identify, so hard to accurately describe.  It’s a combination of skin, and warmth, and sun, and something that’s just inexplicably baby you want to stick your nose in the crook of their neck and build a home there.  We rocked and we rocked. My eyelids started to close as the weight and pressure of her little body pressed down heavily on my own. I thought about how the girls will ask for a ride in the rock-a-bye chair to stave off beditme just a little bit longer.  I’ll always agree, even if we have to jam in there like toes in a too-small shoe.  I thought about how even now, I’ll ask my mom for a ride in the rock-a-bye chair. After she finishes laughing, she’ll let me perch myself over her lap for a few minutes before someone needs us.  The last thought before I dozed off was, “Sometimes, you just need your mom.”

(Vivi at one month)

For a few minutes, I didn’t care that there were dishes in the sink, that there was unfolded laundry in the buckets, and lightbulbs that needed to be replaced in the hall.  Right then, gliding back and forth, that what I needed to be doing.  I thought about the times I rocked Mo and Co in that very chair.  The only constants in each memory is the chair and my telling myself to remember that moment.  I can close my eyes and exactly recall the position of the glider in the room, the way the light from outside filtered through the slats on the the blinds, the way her eyes raced underneath her eyelids like she was reading ahead in her dreams.  I remember the Hubs gently chiding me to put her in the crib, put her in the crib, put her in the crib, and me wanting just a few more minutes, just a few more minutes, which I’m glad I took.  With Co, I remember the creak of the floorboards underneath the glider as we rocked back and forth. There’s the pops, hisses, and clinks of the radiator in the room, giving additional harmony to my humming as I ran my hand over her head again, and again.  I remember willing myself to remember, taking mental snapshots that I could come back to when I needed them.

I know a baby can’t sleep all day. Every nap time can’t be something out of a storybook, but I would gladly get nothing done, toss my best laid plans, forgo a shower and a second cup of coffee for the chance to glide in the rocker with my baby, listening to her breathe, and falling in love over and over again.

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IN: ON: May 6, 2013 TAGS: , , , BY: Hilary
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recipes

Recipe Friday: A Twofer

Something is going with me that I just can’t a handle on things.  There are a lot of things that have gotten started (loading the dishwasher, folding the laundry, defrosting dinner), but just haven’t been completed.  I really want to blame that literal time suck that is Daylight Savings, but it’s been close a week now, so I know the problem lies squarely with me. 
When I have a few minutes to think about it, usually, if I can remember to shut the door behind me in the bathroom, I realize, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Period.  Well, and I’ve got a vicious circle of demanding wee ones that are always in need of a wiped nose, wiped bottom, snack, or some variation on a theme.  Once I get one squared away and turn my attention to the next one, another one is coming up with a request.  You ever see those street hustlers with the three cups and the ball telling you “Keep your eye on the ball, keep your eye on the ball,” as they do some Cirque du Soleil type tricks with the cups? Yeah, I’m the ball; the kids are the cups. 
Even when I was no longer laid up in bed with the cast and crutches, I still feel like I had a better grasp of my time and to-do list.  My system hasn’t changed; our routines are pretty much the same.  I don’t know where things have gotten off kilter. I kinda want to lay it at V’s chubby little baby feet; she’s crawling now, which means, I actually have to stay on top of the housecleaning because EVERY.THING is going right into her mouth.  She and I have this constant battle.  I put her down so I can use both of my hands to — oh, I don’t know — tie my shoes — and she’s beelined to the fridge, running her fat fingers underneath to unearth some kind of who knows what.  I see her, make a grab, but she’s got her fingers in her mouth. Up she comes on my hip, where I pin her arms in my armpit with one hand, while doing a fishing expedition in her mouth with my other.  Ugh, she hates it, I hate it.  Her head is whipping back and forth and I actually put words to the movements, as in “no, no, no!”  Plus her little teeth are coming in, so I’ve got a ring of baby bites on my index finger.  If I had them inked in, it would be a pretty sweet tattoo.
Come to think of it, I spend quite a bit of time doing the put down, pick up routine.  There’s a lot of repetition at home, which is probably why I don’t feel as though I’m making any forward progress on other things.  Oh, and the amount of time I spend in the car.  Whoa.  The sad part is, I’m not really even going anywhere!  The hubs and I were talking about commutes the other day; his is 90 minutes, one way.  A carpool run for me is about 45, but given the myriad of other things going on between drop off and pick up, I, too am in the car about 3 hours every day.  
In any event, I’m trying to figure out how to delegate some responsibilities so that things get done around here.  On trash days, I’ve started paying the girls a dollar to drag the trash bins up the driveway, back to the shed.  We’re working on having them wipe out the sink in their shared bathroom with Clorox wipes after each use, because having to take a flathead screwdriver to some crusted up toothpaste is not fun.  After the laundry has been done, I stack it up on my bed and call them in to collect their stuff.   Clearing the table after meals is something I have to remind them to do every.single.time. they. eat – but, I’m confident that they’re going to remember on their own one day. Hopefully, it’ll come before they go off to college.  
The girls have really wanted to help in the kitchen when I’m making breakfast or dinner.  The workspace in my kitchen is not conducive to many cooks, even if I  wanted anyone in there with me.  I’m not saying that the kitchen is my domain, I’m just saying, I’ve got a flow and I like to be in there, flowing, if you will, on my own.  Plus, I don’t want any little fingers getting burned, chopped, or grated, if you feel me.  But, they are desperate to be in the kitchen and help me.  
I wrestle with it because, like I said, I like my kitchen a certain way. I know several folks who know what I’m talking about.  Another part of me thinks that if I don’t foster the interest in cooking, then they’ll never learn about volume, conversions, and why you should never use a liquid measuring cup for dry ingredients!  I can’t wait for them to get to Home Ec.  Do they even have Home Ec anymore?
So, I started off small.   During the holidays, I’ll set them up at the kitchen table with cookie dough, sprinkles, and all manner of decorating paraphernalia   Sometimes, I’ll let the babysitter take one for the team and enlist her aid in having the girls make cupcakes or brownies.  My parents and my in-laws love having little hands help out, so rest assured that there’s always some kind of culinary explosion going on. 
The other day, Co got her High Five magazine in the mail and found a recipe for a Spring Time Salad. The child would only eat snacks if you let her, starts hopping form foot to foot, begging to make this.  I gently reminded her that the recipe included vegetables, in particular, asparagus.  She was not to be deterred.  So, during the next shopping order, I got her ingredients.  There’s a pot-luck at church every Wednesday during Lent and there is a dearth of vegetable offerings.  I suggested to Co that we bring her salad to the pot-luck.  Wednesday rolled around and we got cooking.  
Yeah, I made this!
Mo, in her ever present quest for fairness, wanted to make something to bring to the communal table as well.  I peeped into the fridge, casting about for something, anything that we could throw together and call it good.  I introduce you to Cabbage and Broccoli Slaw! 
Ta-da!

They were so proud of themselves, they almost toppled over one another bringing it to the community table in the Fellowship Hall!  And while we made our way around the table, dropping biscuits and chicken, green beans and rice onto our plates, we noticed that their salads were getting scooped up, too.  Just not by Mo and Co. In classic kiddo fashion, my girls bypassed their own handiwork and went straight for the bread (they get it from their father!).

Well, I sampled the vegetables and they were delightful! I even had seconds. Trust me, there’s no shame in my pot-luck game and as one of my fellow parishoners said, “That’s the trouble with pot-lucks.  You try your luck on what’s in the pot!”

Happy Friday, y’all!

Springtime Asparagus Salad courtesy of High Five Magazine

1 pound asparagus
2 hard-boiled eggs
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tbs. lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1. Snap the woody ends off the asparagus. Steam for  seven minutes. Drain and rinse in cold water; Set aside. 
2. Using an egg slicer, slice the hard boiled eggs. If you don’t have an egg slicer, chop the eggs.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the  lemon juice and olive oil. 
4. Place the sliced/chopped egg atop the asparagus.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice.  Serve and enjoy!
Cabbage and Broccoli Slaw
2 cups red and green cabbage
1 cup shredded carrot
1 cup broccoli florets (no stems)
1. Place all ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Mix well and place in refrigerator to chill at least 1 hour prior to serving. 
3. Serve and enjoy!
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IN: recipes ON: March 15, 2013 TAGS: , , , , , , , BY: Hilary
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Hurts So Good

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When it comes to working out, I’ve been advised by my doctor not to do any exercises that force me to pull up on the top of my foot and potentially cause more damage to my tendons.  Basically, don’t insert your foot into anything that has a strap across the top (peace out, spinning!).  I’ve been practically living on the elliptical machine since I’d been given clearance to work out, but it was getting boring.  I kept seeing people working themselves into a lather on the stair climbers.  The gym has 4 brand-new ones that are in constant use.  I figured if one ever opened up, I’d give it a go.

Let me tell you, that stair climber is no joke!  I set a personal goal of 30 minute or 300 calories, whichever came first. By the end of the first song on my work-out mix, I had talked myself down to 3 minutes, which was the duration of the next song!  Seriously, I tried slowing down the pace, but that was making me snag my foot on the lip of the next step.  Not wanting to faceplant and then bodysurf down the treads, I upped the pace, but my arms were the ones getting the workout, since I was holding on for dear life.  The woman next to me started to alternate walking up the stairs in a traditional manner, then walking up the stairs leading with her left foot in a side step, then rotating and leading with her right foot.  I was waiting to see if she was going to do it backwards, but she must have been fearing the faceplant/bodysurf combo and changed her mind.

I will say, I was in a flop sweat almost immediately and that, to me, is always a good judge of how well and how hard I’ve work out.  So, I decided to keep the stair climber in the mix.  It’s been a few weeks, and I’m getting bored again.  I haven’t been back to kettlebells, I doubt I’ll go back to the studio.  When the weather gets warmer, I’ll swing my own bells like I was doing before.  In the interim, I’m looking for something else to work multiple muscle groups at once.  I tried doing one of those barre classes; there was a Groupon for three classes for the price of one.  It was a good deal, but I ended up losing money because I had to hire a sitter to keep the wee one so I could go to class.  Not cost effective.  Plus, we’re already paying for a gym that has childcare; I needed to find something else.

I was chatting with a friend of mine who had done both kettlebell and barre with me.  She mentioned how she took up swimming after a serious injury. Swimming. . .interesting.

Now, I do know how to swim. I was never one of those girls growing up who was afraid of getting her hair wet and never learned. I did take lessons. We belonged to the community pool and I fought long and hard to pass the requisite levels so I could move from kiddie pool, to mid pool, to full access.  There was a badge system in place – yellow, purple, and red.  You had to wear your badge on your suit and the lifeguards were eagle eyed about it.  If you were a yellow badge in the deep end? Forget it! Automatic whistle blow and swim of shame to shallower waters.  So, I worked hard to get that red badge for all access. I can remember treading water like my life depended on it.  Actually, it did; I’d just swum across the length of the pool after diving in.  If I couldn’t keep my head up, it was going to be back to purple badge-dom.

Fast forward to college. I took scuba diving as my phys ed. requirement.  Not a lot of “our kind of people” in that class, let me tell you.  Our dives were limited to the pool in Kinesiology building, but it was still a great experience.  Somewhere along the way, I retained enough information to keep myself safe in the water.

After the girls were of an age, I wanted them to be good swimmers, too.  It’s not about being an Olympian, though that would be nice (I’m sure there are lots of scholarships for Black swimmers). It’s not about flipping around in the pool during the summer and playing Marco Polo with your friends.   It’s a a life skill that they need to have, plain and simple.  So, summer after summer, I signed them up for lessons.  You can imagine how that went.

We’re at the point where I’ll ask them what they plan to do if they go to a pool party and everyone else is in the water.  Mo’s response, “I’ll read a book on the side.”

Oy.

Well, after some thought, I realized, I need to lead by example.  My godmother had never learned how to swim and after she retired, at age 65, she learned.  Started from scratch with lessons.  So, I followed her lead. I signed myself up for some lessons and had my first one yesterday.  The thing is, I can swim.  I can keep myself afloat, I can get to the edge. I’m not going to win any races, and I’m not going to win any prizes for gracefulness, but I can do it.  I just want to do it better.  My instructor says I have a good basis; I need to fine tune some things, but the foundation is there.

Today, I am aching in places I haven’t thought about since anatomy class (gracilis, anyone?).  But it’s good, it’s very good.  I ran into my instructor on the way to the car as I was leaving the gym today and introduced her to Mo, who is home with me on Spring Break.   As we were buckling up, Mo was incredulous that I was taking swimming lessons.  I reminded her that we’ll be able to go to the pool this summer and swim together, to which she replied, “I’m just going to sit on the side and read a book.”

This kid. . .

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IN: ON: March 14, 2013 TAGS: , , BY: Hilary
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