So turns out G is no water baby. Even after the 8 weeks of $15 a pop swimming lessons we made him take. Which consisted of him:

a)      Frantically waving at me to get my attention so he could spend most of the lesson taking a “bathroom break”

b)      Me trying as hard as I could to avoid eye contact with him

Regardless, by the end of his swim class session, he could at least jump into the water while clutching onto a kickboard and “kick” his way to the shallow end. Meaning his swim instructor, Paul, caught him as he jumped and pretty much pushed him to the shallow end.

Whatever. At least he got into the pool.      

Well, his new-found non-aversion to swimming did not transcribe to Lake Michigan.

Big surprise.

I figured this out while visiting my parents at their Michigan house. As we prepared for the beach, G was so excited to play in the sand, go “swimming,” use his new Toy Story 3 raft his friend E had given him. Until we actually got to the beach.

After unpacking all of our stuff I said,

“Who’s ready to go into the water?” to which my land-loving son said,

“Oh, I’m not going in the water.”

Not going in the water? What was all this swimming talk? I responded with,

“I thought you were going swimming.”

He looked at me crazily and said,

“I just did.”

Let me report on what his idea of swimming was—gingerly walking over to the water in his Speedo swim vest, swim shoes, and swim goggles, quickly filling up his sand pail with water, and sprinting back to our beach chairs.

This clearly wasn’t going to fly with me. I was that child who would fall asleep at night still feeling the rhythm of the waves after body-surfing in sixty degree water all day.

After much cajoling, lecturing, and bribing, John and I eventually pulled him into the water, where he EVENTUALLY stopped clutching onto me and stood by himself for 2 minutes. And then was done.

The next day, he was a bit more comfortable, and actually started to enjoy the water, especially since he figured out he could ALMOST walk all the way out to the sandbar. With me holding one hand and my mother holding the other. But whatever—in his mind, this was REALLY SWIMMING! Still wouldn’t go in by himself.

Then pretty, red-headed T stepped into the picture. I did not even really witness this, but heard her approach while I was napping. My mother was making a sand castle with G and from my beachy daze I could hear a little, polite voice comment on what a nice sand castle it was. The next thing I knew, 7-year-old, T (who is a dead ringer for a young Molly Ringwald) and G were busily playing and having a grand old time.

Until T asked the deadly question,

“Wanna go swimming?”

My parents and I sucked in our breaths. Here was where all his bravado and charm was going to fly into the sky like a run-away kite, because we all knew that child wasn’t going into the water without HIS MAMA.

But turns out like all men, he’s a sucker for an older, red-headed woman because the next thing I knew, off he went, acting like going chest-deep into the water was second nature to him.

Looks like those red-headed girls can get you every time, even when you’re just a 5-year-old boy…

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 8th, 2010 at 2:28 pm and is filed under Weekly Thought. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.