Sunday Same

For the past year or so, we've had our Sunday morning routine down pat. Breakfast of eggs, bacon, and/or pancakes whipped up by Mama. Check. A few stolen minutes to enjoy a cup of coffee and read my favorite sections of the paper. Check. Pile in the car and head over to Waterworks Aquatics for Lauren's weekly swim lesson with Miss Jacqueline. Check. Check.

Lauren has been taking swim lessons on and off for several years. We switched to year-round lessons once we found Waterworks. 20 minutes, once a week. Warm pool, protected from the elements, and a nice locker room with decent showers. Score. Plus I get Lauren's shower and hair washing out of the way for the day and we get more time to play come nighttime. Double score.

20 minutes is really not much time, but she loves Jacqueline (moved here from Hawaii!), and her swimming just took off right around the time she turned 5. Coming from parents who grew up as swimmers, we feel so proud to see her motoring all the way across the 25-yard-pool, side breathing and all. She's been diligently working on her strokes and skills.

Freestyle.



Backstroke.



Breaststroke (still has a little work to do on this one).



Diving.



We pay in advance 4 weeks at a time, and every month when it comes time to renew her lessons, I pause and think "Do we really need to keep doing this?" Truth be told, Lauren always complains when it comes time to leave for the pool (although she eagerly jumps in to splash and play with her friends pre-lesson). And helping her in the locker room afterwards? Well, let's just say all the moms in there deserve awards (or at least hour-long massages), what with the super-hot heat blasting, puddles on the floor, and screaming children who don't want to be washed or have their hair combed. Seriously makes me have a new appreciation for what my own mother had to deal with, raising 3 children as swimmers from such a young age.

But it's important to us that she swim well. Not that we will insist she join a swim team and swim competitively, that is totally up to her. But to comfortably be able to execute all the strokes (butterfly is learned at the next level) is all we really want. So our Sunday morning ritual will go on for the foreseeable future. And as much as I dread that sauna of a locker room, we will continue to do it. Because that's what parents do.