Robynne's Nest

Just a place for this SAHM to record her thoughts, ramblings, and daily occurrences.

My Photo
Name:
Location: Missouri, United States

I'm a SAHM to SIX children, 3 of each model. The girls are currently ages 15, 12 and 7, and the boys are 9, 6, and 4. I enjoy many crafts, but my main interest is crocheting and knitting. I also enjoy music, both listening to and playing. I'm in the church bell choir, and I've played french horn for over 25 years. I currently play in a couple community concert bands, and I play throughout the year in church. My husband and I were married in the fall of 2004, and we are currently owned by 3 cats and 1 dog.

Tuesday, June 05, 2012

Caution and Bravery

Today I am going to share a little about my funny little boy Ethan. :) As many of you know, I have 6 kids.  They all of course have their own unique styles and personalities, but my son Ethan, fondly known as "5 of 6" or sometimes, "Bubba", is just a different kind of kid.  He's the most quiet of all 6, for sure, but he's also sweet, and funny, and cute.  He's also the most cautious.  I remember observing him one time as a baby, as he crawl-climbed from the easy chair to the sofa, where there was a small gap.  My oldest son, at that age, would have LEAPED from the arm of the chair to the sofa, not even realizing, or maybe just not caring, that there was this gap and potential fall below him.  Ethan, on the other hand, carefully reached out his hand, patted the arm of the sofa, then shifted weight to that hand, while he carefully moved the second hand over next to it, slowly, and making sure everything was stable and "safe", before carefully pulling first one knee, then the other, over onto the sofa.  That was one of the earliest examples of how different he was from 3 of 5, and 4 of 5 (the female version of 3)
So recently, my sis Heather and I signed some of the kids up for swimming lessons for the first summer session, June 4 through 21, daily lessons except weekends. I only signed up Ethan, because the 4 older ones are in summer school, and Evan is too little. So yesterday was the first day, and I'm having to take Ethan and my 3 nephews by myself this week, because my sis had to go back in to work for a few days to work on new curriculum at the high school. Ethan being such a cautious kid, and a little clingy when we go to the pool as a family, I wasn't sure how he'd do, but I thought he'd be ok, maybe after a little encouragement. Boy was I wrong! He was fine as long as we were sitting on the bleachers waiting for class to start, but as soon as I told him to go sit on the side of the pool with his class, he freaked out. He cried, said no, had a velcro grip on me, I couldn't pry him off my leg! Meanwhile, I had to keep grabbing Evan, who kept pointing to the pool and wandering towards the side...just what I needed, Ethan glued to me, and Evan falling in the pool. lol So the lessons are 50 minutes. I begged, pleaded, bribed, and gently urged Ethan to just try to sit on the side, just put his feet in, etc. it took me 20 minutes to convince him to sit with the class, but he would only sit on the pool deck, not the ledge, and put juuuuust his feet in. That made me nervous because he kept leaning over to feel the water with his hands, and I was afraid he'd topple over! His teacher would get to him (6 kids in his class) for his turn, and say, you want to try one time? Just let me hold you in the water a minute? And Ethan would say...um, no thanks! lol Ethan also told the teacher, ok you go away now. lol The teacher tried to get him to just get in and hang onto the ledge for a few seconds, nope not gonna. "no thanks! you go away now!" lol We finally convinced him to sit on the ledge, and fiiiinally the teacher was able to get him into the water to hold onto the side, and let him cling there for 45 seconds or so, and poor Ethan was just looking at me with accusatory saucer eyes, lol. Ah well. then it was time to jump in from the side and the teacher catches. Ethan did some more "no thanks!" for each of his turns, lol. The school age classes (Ethan is 3, almost 4, and in the preschool class) go to the deep end and get to jump off the diving board for the last 5-10 min. of class, and at the very end, they take any of the preschoolers who want to down there to try the board, too. The first day, 3 of the 6 preschoolers jumped off, 2 chickened out, and Ethan wouldn't even go to the line...BUT...he watched the others then said to me all excited...I wanna do that!! I wanna do that too!!" But then time was up. That was just yesterday, lesson 1. lol So...TODAY...we go for 2nd day, and Ethan and I had a long talk last night, and again this morning, about trying to participate, and trusting his teacher, and that it would be fun...then I got out the big bribe. I told him...I would let him have side if he did his lesson. (side in what Ethan calls nursing, and he asks once or twice a week still, and so this is still a big deal to him) He looked at me with big eyes and said....really?!?!? Yay!!!!! Ok...so maybe this will work. Same thing as yesterday, fine on the sidelines waiting for start time, and then "No I don't want to" when it was time to start...UNTIL I reminded him he could have side if he did his lesson. And he said....Hm. Ok. lol And he went and sat on the side with his class. AND his teacher got him into the water to kick with the board. He gripped the teacher and board pretty tightly, but was happy to hang onto the side and pull himself up to sit on the ledge on his own. I only had to remind him about his reward twice. ♥ And he LOVED the jumping in from the side part. OH, there was a 2nd teacher, a woman, this time, and Ethan would only trust the boy teacher at first, the one who was also there yesterday. The boy teacher finally got Ethan to accept the girl teacher, lol, but boy he sure wasn't going to at first! These teachers are all high school and college age, kids who have been on swim team and lifeguard trained. Anyway...it was so funny to see how different he was, and mostly because of a bribe to let him nurse. rofl OH! and then at the end, with the diving board, he said he wanted to do it, so he got in line. Then when it was his turn, he got up on the board, a teacher helped him walk towards the end, and then he was like....uuuuhhhh NOOOOOO WAAAAAYYYY!! lol and he got back off. Then said he wanted to try again, but now he has to wait until tomorrow b/c time was up. :D I video'd that, bc I thought he might actually jump off.  SO...funny stuff with my sweetie cautious boy! :D ♥  12 more lessons in this session!  I really am proud of how much he progressed in just one day, though. 

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home