We’ve got Jack enrolled in swimming lessons. He goes on Saturdays, a forty-minute drive to the suburban pool where my wife lifeguarded during her summers growing up.
This is not a rush to over-program the kid. He really likes water. His first swimming experience was in March, when we took him on vacation.
He wasn’t even a year old and already had no patience for things like precaution or safety. We borrowed this little inflatable raft, complete with sun roof. After two trips to the pool in that thing, he wanted nothing to do with it. He would crawl into the pool on his own. He’d push away when we held on to him.
Now that he’s a little older and a little more aware, he’ll cling on to us a little tighter. Let us pull him around the pool while he hugs our shoulders.
His lessons are little things. Dunking. Teaching him to blow bubbles in the water. Kicks. Letting go and seeing if he’ll reach and kick to a ledge.
My favorite lesson with him was sitting him on the ledge of the pool, out of the water, then opening my arms to him. He gives me that big open mouth smile of his and jumps into my arms. We did this at least twenty times, neither of us getting bored. I don’t know what made him happier: the thrill of the jump or knowing I was there to catch him.
I don’t know what made me happier, either.
But if I had to pick, it would be watching him look at this pool of water and not be scared. To take such joy in doing something new.
There is going to come a time, a few years down the road, when that fearlessness will give me a heart attack. When he’ll have climbed up on top of our garage with his bike or something, all set to pull a Jackass and ride off as I pull into the driveway.
Hopefully, I can steer him away from recklessness and help him remember what he already knows. Probably better than I do. That to live a real life, you can’t be afraid to jump in.
Alan Kercinik is a marketing type/dad who, right now, is probably hanging out with his wife, walking the dog, reading, listening to music, ranting about some movie or television show, toiling away on a novel or telling his son not to climb on something. The opinions expressed on Always Jacked are his, but they are probably influenced by his wife.
