Just Keep Swimming

Prepare yourselves to be on the receiving end of a mind blowing statement….Kids are hard.  I know.  You are just as shocked as I am.  I think we know each other well enough by now that I don’t need to insert all of the obvious statements about what an absolute joy kids are, how life changing of an experience it is, yada yada yada.  That goes without saying.  But sometimes, as parents, I think we need to exhale a deep breath and go to our happy places.


Levi has reached a particularly trying stage  of life.  He has always had an opinion on most of what happens to him but recently he has started to experiment with just how hard he can exert his will to change his circumstance.  He has been taking swim lessons for the past two weeks and is about to embark on week 3.  Mind you, most kids stop at week 2 but Levi has had such a great time doing nothing but floating around on his back in the pool that he needs an extra week to decide to learn to do things like kick his legs or move his arms or blow bubbles or really just about anything else.  I know my friends think I am exaggerating about this but really, he spends about 75% of his lesson floating mindlessly around the pool on his back, while his patient instructor wades along behind him trying to engage him in any other aspect of swimming.  He spends the other 25% of the time screaming bloody murder.  So, anyways, he is taking swim lessons and that has been a massive learning experience for both of us.


He and I have also begun the tiring journey of what I like to  call, “The Church Nursery: Guerilla Style”.  My husband has recently taken a job at the church we have been attending somewhat sporadically and we have now decided to make it our church home…for all of us…including Levi.  We had had a few failed nursery attempts earlier in his life but now Greg and I are intent on making him love the nursery.  And what’s not to love about it?! New toys, snacks, play dough (extra snack) and arts and crafts!  Toddler heaven!  Unless you are Levi.  I’m not exactly sure what it is he specifically hates about the nursery experience.  He has been left with babysitters and has been fine.  He knows how to play on his own for short periods of time.  And the times I have sat in there with him he has pretty much ignored me.  But for whatever reason, he despises it with all that is in his 27 lb body.  This week, for example, after a great pep talk with all of his nursery volunteers, we all made the conscious decision to just let him ride it out.  Scream as he might, we were all dedicated to helping him overcome whatever this new obstacle is.  We all but did a little cheer together at the end of the short discussion.  We were a unified body of care takers.  It takes a village, that whole thing.  I am in the service all but 5 minutes when my number comes flashing up.  I head back to the nursery to find that Levi has cried so hard he has thrown up.  The nursery workers obviously wanted me to be aware and after a brief inspection of Levi, who upon seeing me immediately calms down and starts talking about trucks, I decide he is fine and back in he goes.  This time, to avoid the hassle of springing up when my number flashes up again, I decide to wait it out in the Nursing Mothers Room.  About 15 minutes goes by and I’m feeling pretty confident when there is a tap on the door and in walks a blessed nursery worker carrying a screaming Levi and both of them are covered in his urine.  Game, set, match.  Levi’s guerilla war tactics beat out my good old fashioned cry it out strategy.


Greg and I spend countless hours, laying on our couch, recapping the day like the game footage a football coach watches at the end of each weekend.  We try to figure out what is working and what isn’t working and what makes us want to pull our hair out and what makes us love this kid so much we could burst.  We encourage one another and most of the time we just shrug and say, “I have no stinking idea what I’m doing.”  I read books and google phrases like “2 year old bedtimes” and “temper tantrums” and “sharknado” (because that one popped up on my twitter feed more times than I was comfortable with in one day).


All of this to say, with each new stage of childhood development comes new challenges.  And you know what?  No one actually knows how to solve those challenges.  You can find books with every opinion under the sun.  And everyone wants to offer some friendly advice from the random dude you went to high school with who follows you on Instagram to the random lady pumping gas next to you and everyone in between.   And you really can’t trust most of what google tells you about anything (except the Sharknado, that turned out to be accurate). But as parents, sometimes we just need someone to forgo the endless advice or wistful sighs of what is so great about raising kids and say, “Hey there.  You’re doing a great job.  I know your child is coloring with permanent marker on your leg as I say this, but really, he/she is awesome.  So you must be doing a good job of it.”  So for all you parents out there: you sleep deprived zombies with newborns, you survivors of the terrible 2’s, you parents of ‘tweens who now find yourselves having to explain to your 12 year old what happened to their favorite character on Glee this weekend and to you saints of teenagers who just pray your 16 year old doesn’t crash his car into a tree, hey, you’re doing a great job. Hang in there.  Exhale loudly and take a minute to congratulate yourself on the 12 hours, 12 months, or 12 years you have kept this kid healthy,  (relatively) happy and loved.


Just keep swimming. Or as Levi would say, “Just keep floating on your back until the 30 minute lesson is over and you get to go to the store and get a cookie.”