Picking Food Up Off The Floor

The Other One’s a Fish0

After mentioning Drew’s swimming experience I thought it would be good to mention Brandon.  Bran LOVES swimming.  This boy tends to be shy in new surroundings and often takes months to warm up at things like music class, Sunday School,  or Pre-School.  But at swimming he has found his joy. He tends to be a little quiet at the start of class but as soon as they get in the water he has the biggest smile ever.  Today he spent most of the class trying to float on his stomach while the rest of the class was doing something else.  The class started out with life vests on so he would hold onto the wall and then push himself off and float.  When the vests came off, he kept trying to do it and just kept laughing and smiling.  He regularly goes under and pops back up, he won’t however go under to pick something up off the bottom. Apparently it’s okay to accidently go under, or put your head just under the surface, but he’s not ready to go under far enough to pick something up yet, at least not on purpose. He’s happy to participate in the activities and doesn’t mind the teacher or her assistant helping or directing him to do something.  Swimming is definitely a place where Brandon feels happy and secure and it’s really fun to watch the real Brandon come out during his lessons, or any swimming activity.  I think one of the reasons why swimming class works for Brandon is that there is a lot of time when he can play alone when the teacher is helping each of the kids and that resonates well with his introversion.

Posted: Drew & Bran, Edmonton

A Lesson in Listening0

Drew likes to be the center of attention and often volunteers to go first. Well…he got a surprise today and a lesson is listening.  At swimming lessons today the teacher told them they were going to do something (I couldn’t hear what she said to them), and asked who wanted to go first. Drew excitedly said “me, me, I want to go first!”  Drew is doing well with his lessons, but still doesn’t like to put his head or face in the water.  So what a shock to him when the teacher put her arms around him and dunked him! He came up sputtering and coughing and generally unhappy.  He quickly recovered and went about playing in the water, but still wasn’t too happy. I think he’ll pay better attention next time before he volunteers to go first! At least at swimming lessons.

It turned out to be really good though, he’s slowly learning that it’s okay to get his face wet and nothing bad happens when he goes under.

Posted: Drew & Bran, Edmonton