Swimmingly Yours

“The County Recreation Center called an hour ago” my mom said as Chip guzzled his elaichi flavored Horlicks and I rummaged the fridge for an after work snack. “To confirm?” “No.” my mom replied. “They said lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays are cancelled. They have enrolled him for Monday and Wednesday and if that doesn’t work for us they will give us a refund.” “Ok. Same time?” “Yes. Same time- 6:20” my mom nodded. I glanced at the clock it was 6:05. “I think we can make it to today’s class. Dang. Why didn’t they call earlier?” I frowned. “Come on Chip, let’s go swimming.” Chip wiped his mouth on his sleeve, leaped off his chair and let out an excited scream. My mom dressed him while I changed and we stuffed ourselves into the car and drove to the Rec. Center.

It was 6:20 on the dot when we arrived. We ran inside and found the registration desk. I explained the situation to the twenty-something blond there and was told to wait in the corner of the swimming pool area for the instructor to show up. By 6:30 there was no one in sight. I went by again and found someone and told her my story. “Wait there, someone will be there soon.” By now Chip was getting antsy. He saw the water and was ready to dive in. “Wait a second, you teacher will be here soon.” I tried to hold him back. 15 minutes later and no one in sight, I let Chip go inside the baby pool. Ten minutes later, someone finally summoned us. Chip refused to get out of the water and cried for dear life, showing off his mighty lung power as I tore him away to another section of the pool where the classes were held. There were six other kids. All remarkably quiet and well behaved. While the toddlers looked on as the instructor (let’s give him an alphabet E) introduced himself to us, Chip’s eyes and heart were already in the toy bin where he had mentally picked out a red bucket he wanted to play with. “I want to play with red bucket.” He declared to no one in particular. I shushed him. First appealing to the good boy in him, then the big boy, finally threatening to give him away to a rakshas. That bought me a full 15 seconds while he squinted and did some quick mental math to calculate the odds of that happening after which he was ready to dive in the pool.

After refusing my help to step into the deep-for-Chip pool and trying to wiggle away to the water slides, Chip started Activity#1. “Wheels of the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round” sang Chip gleefully moving his arms in unsynchronized strokes. After the song was done, E cheered the kids and Chip declared loudly “Let’s sing Humpty-Dumpty now.” I shushed him yet again, telling him we had to listen to E, but he wouldn’t let go. “ I want to sing humpty dumpty.” He whined. So while other kids and their mommies and daddies listened to what the next activity was all about, Chip and his mother ended up singing humpty-dumpty, albeit softly.

The next activity involved buckets. Chip let out a “YAY” and clapped as E brought out the little sand pails. E went to each kid asking him/her to dump a pail full of water on his head and gently dumping a pail full of water on theirs. Chip gleefully dumped a bucket on E’s head and then several buckets on mine. While other mommies’ and daddies’ hair stayed nice and dry, my head was drenched by a very, very zealous Chip. While other kids stayed quietly in their parents arms, Chip splashed, jumped, kicked constantly.

Then came the barbells and the little duckie board and the hokie-pokie song. All in all, it was a BIG exercise for me. And while I was beating myself up for not jumping on the treadmill, I did end up getting a good workout just swooshing Chip in water and dunking him and doing all the activities with him, but mostly just trying to holding him still. Let’s see how it goes tomorrow.