Toads and Swimming

I had this idea that my children would love swimming lessons. Ok, I thought Gabriel would love them and Ethan would at the very least tolerate them. Wrong. And wrong.

Gabriel missed the element of competition and Ethan's ultra shy personality propelled him to spend most of his swimming lessons crawling out of the pool and crying in a corner. Gabriel is a natural swimmer. He excelled in his class. His coaches couldn't believe these were his first lessons. Ethan is not bad either. He only recently became comfortable with the water but was starting to gain distance in underwater swimming prior to signing up for lessons. I just don't understand why it was so terrible for them.

It probably didn't help that the water was kept one degree above freezing.

I started to turn into a stage mother for swimming. Thank God for husbands. He snapped me back to reality. That's not what we want for the kids - to be made to do something out of our own desires or unfulfilled dreams.

They better be really good at school (because they are already the smartest kids on the planet!). Who knows where the scholarships will come from!

But before I bury this dream for my kids, here are some pics from our stint at swimming.

Gabriel sporting his tats.

Ethan where he is happiest, sitting on the edge of the pool.

Ethan crying during the hokey pokey.

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They say that the presence of frogs indicates a healthy eco system. Is the same true for toads? We seem to have an excess of them. In our house. Regularly, I call in my man or man-child to humanely remove toads from my house. On some level I wish our cat or dog would make themselves useful by scaring the toads off. Then again, that wish could turn out gory so maybe not.