Heads Underwater

It has been almost 3 months now, since the missus ventured south to the Victorious City. It has been a rough ride, for the daughter, who misses her mother greatly. I have done what I can to divert her, but there are times that I fail utterly. It is not in me to coddle my child, and my methods of teaching tend towards the draconian. The old ways have always worked, in my opinion when it comes to schoolwork, and my daughter has only helped to reinforce this.

But when it comes to physical activity, I am not so confident. Those who know me know that I am not, by any generous definition, a sporty person. So it was with some reluctance that I agreed to teach my daughter to swim.

I had tried this before, mind you. The sprog was happy enough to splash in the shallow pools, and to clamber on my back to 'ride the whale' as I did my laps. But she appeared to have an abject fear of getting water in her eyes and holding her breath underwater. So much so that I had largely given up on her swimming before she became an adult.

For some reason, the topic of swimming came up over the weekend, just before the National Celebrations. And I found myself promising to bring her down to splash in the water once again. She thoroughly enjoyed that, but went on to ask me to teach her again. I warned her that it was going to be frightening at times, and reminded her that my teaching methods usually involved a bit of trauma. But she persisted, so I agreed.

To my surprise, she was more receptive to what I told her, and actually put some effort into her kicking. It took me a good while before she was willing to try holding her own nose and looking underwater, goggles on, of course. Then she was doing it sans hands. That was some motivation, I have to admit. So I committed to teaching her more in the coming months. Soon, I hope, she will be able to pull herself along by dint of her own strength.

In the meanwhile, here was something that she could boast about to her mother, when the missus returns on Friday night.