12:37 pm - February 11, 2005
In which Boy swims
Boy has joined a swimming program. Once he gets a little better he can compete and stuff, although neither he nor I am really all that hyped about the races... I just wanted him to get some excersize, and it doesn't hurt that he's learning to swim better too.
If all you've ever done is put your kids in swimming lessons, you're missing a whole world, nay, universe of weirdness. First off, the group Boy is in is really for kids who are six-sevenish. There are Three hour long practices a week. When I first heard that I'm all like- there is NO FUCKING WAY - but then I thought how good this would be for Boy, so I took him for one practice to see if he'd like it.
He loved it.
Which is cool and all, but let's suppose Boy really gets into it. Let's suppose that This is The Thing that Boy is good at, that will carry his self esteem through those obnoxious teen years.
Boy will have four nights of practice at the next level. Then five. By the time he gets to high school he'll have an hour before and after school. Yes that's a lot, folks, but if he's loving it I'm sure he won't mind. Nope, I'm selfishly worried about the fact that Boy Can't Drive. Which means I'll be hauling my ass up at some ungodly hour when he's a freshman. And that's after some four odd years of giving up an hour and a half of my evenings. I haven't said anything to Boy, and I won't, but I had to vent a little somewhere, so there it is.

So we're at this practice and this high school kid is practicing diving. I'm watching his head miss the board by (What I see as) two inches. Every time he goes off the board my heart drops into my stomach, and I don't even know this kid. I'm just sick to think that Boy might like diving, but of course, if he got into it I wouldn't say a thing, so I'm all smiling and like "Wow Boy, did you see that guy dive? What do you think about that? Is that cool or what?" To which he replies "Yeah, that's cool, but that Speedo is freaky."

When the high school needs the pool on a practice night we are supposed to come back on a Friday. So I bring Boy, but he's one of six or seven kids, and none of the others are beginners. His coach has him swim across the pool with the others, she just tells him to swim any way he wants. So while the other kids have sped to the other side of the pool doing the breast stroke, Boy is almost doing something like Freestyle. He goes back and forth five(ish) times, and it's like watching a wind up toy peter out. I'm getting really nervous. I'm thinking, he does have the sense to grab the rope if he's going to drown, right? Finally he has to do just that. I can see he's trying not to cry, so I go over there... he's all upset because he's pooped, but the other kids are going back and forth so fast, and he should be going fast too since he's their age...
Point the First: He's holding his head ou of the water, which forces his butt/legs down, which means he's doing twice as much work to get his ass across he pool. He should be much more tired than they are. And since the other kids would sit a lap out when they got tired and he swam every lap you would expect they'd look fresher.
Point the Second: They have been swimming for years. Years. Is Boy so special that he shouldn't have to learn bit by little bit like they did?
Point the Third: That was he farthest oy had ever swam. By far. He'd never swam anything close to one lap of the pool before that day.
I lay my points across to him. I say he can look at it in a way that makes him feel bad (I should be swimming as fast as they are), or he can feel proud because he swam farther than he ever had before. The secret of Unhappiness is to compare yourself to others. You have to compare where you are now to where you were then, because there will always be someone better at whateveritis than you, and if you haven't met them yet, you will.
It took a half hour for him to agree with me.
What will become of Boy? He is so hard on himself. He makes himself feel bad. What will he do when I'm not there?
Simon says we just have to keep talking to him, and if we get enough practice in he'll get the hang of it and do it himself. Simon is so sensible.