Fearless Spud

It was my turn in the pool for a Sunday make-up swimming class and I remember the moment clearly. 

After asking Spud if she wanted to dive in to pick up the toy at the bottom of the pool a shot, while fully expecting her to say “No,”, Spud surprised me by giving me a nod. She then stood with her knees on the edge, confidently raised both hands to the front of her head, made a dive and as I gently gave her a little push downwards, she eased herself to the bottom of the pool, picked up a sunken toy, swam back-up and gave me her biggest smile ever. 

She was beyond proud of herself – the sparkle in her eyes and her contagious grins right after she bobbed out of the water convinced me so.

And I was beaming with joy. 

I was smiling and laughing and telling her how cool that was and that she has done it! I didn’t have to ask, for as soon as she realised how fun that was for her, she wanted to do it again on her own accord.

And again.

And again.

And again.

She must have done it no less than 5x continuously. She was fearless.

She loved diving in to fetch the toy at the bottom of the pool so much that she created a small ruckus when her session was up. She really did not want to go (and I wasn’t beaming with joy so much at that!)

Coaxing Spud to give it a go like that has never been easy. In fact, it has taken us months of periodic coaxing to convince her to pick up a toy at the bottom of the pool whenever we take her to her swimming class every weekend.  

Her answer has always been a standard “No,” and even if the toys were placed on one of the shallower steps in which she would be required to do a small dunking in, she had, for quite a while, refused to negotiate herself into it; sometimes preferring to pick it up with her feet instead (!).

And then suddenly, just like that, Spud decided that she was going to swim to the bottom of the pool after months of refusing to even bother with it.

I guess this was just a classic case of she’s ready when she’s ready.

The most amazing thing for me really is the fact that she is doing things that I don’t (or can’t) even do and she does it at so much ease. When she had made up her mind, there was no moment of hesitation and whatever doubts she had months ago had probably dissipated because she felt safe and she KNOWS she is safe.  

It is an incredible feeling to witness that first hand. And, even though this happened more than a week ago, I still beam with joy just thinking about it.

Me proud.proud.proud.

That's Spud floating on the surface while trying to get to the bottom