This morning we were up at the crack of dawn which translates in my terminology to around 8am being a Sunday morning. Sunday is a day of rest and I do try and tend to take it literally. This morning was swimming gala day for the various swimming schools in the area and it was grandsons first real competitive event.
His age group used the miniature body boards as they are not all swimming without aids. My grandson can swim maybe 10 meters before he puts his feet down and todays pool being 1.8 m deep that would not be possible.
Over the last few weeks we have noticed a change at his swimming lessons and is no longer the "submarine" and a danger around a swimming pool. This was the reason we are taking both our grandkids to swimming lessons as we have known parents who lost kids to swimming pool drownings.
These types of family tragedies can be avoided if you have them attend lessons at a young age even if it is just learning the basics. We have a swimming pool at home, but it needs a total redo and will be one of the projects tackled next year. If we had our pool I would have taught them myself as I love swimming and it would be something I could do far quicker than the 30 minute a week lessons.
My grandson came in 6th place out of 9 other kids which he should be very proud of. He is basically legally blind and cannot see very far in front of him so when he jumped into the swimming pool would not really know how far he was swimming. This is literally blind trust and he heard me shouting to keep going even if he could not see me. You do forget his disability as he is so normal and is not obvious unless you know.
What he did today was very brave and more importantly today would have given him self confidence now knowing he can do these things. From being a kid who had no immune system and spent time in intensive care on 3 separate occasions he is far healthier these days and a simple flu bug does not take him out for weeks at a time. We used to dread seeing him come down with a sickness because we all knew where we were going to be ending up.
I call him my little man even though he is growing quickly these days and is expected to be taller than me so 6 ft 6 or there abouts. Maybe because he has needed so much extra care we have had more time to bond through spending quality time together
I knew he was running out of puff about the half way mark as this pool is far bigger than the swimming school facility. He had started of fast and gradually got slower when others over took him and at one point was not certain he was going to make it lol.