I see a lot
of families where the kids look like carbon copies of each other; they
share the same face shape, or hair, or specific features, and you can just tell
that they’re related. My kids couldn’t be more different from each other, they
look nothing alike. Little Miss is the spit of her dad, and was born with a
shock of dark, almost-black hair, that spiked up in a trendy ‘do’, just like D’s
hair. That dark hair fell out around the three month mark, and she grew beautiful
thick, sandy blonde hair, which is gradually going darker now, and is almost
down to her The Stuntman was born with no hair at all (including no
eyebrows), and didn’t really get much to speak of until about 12 months. He
looks more like me, especially around the eyes. He’s now got some (very blonde) hair on top,
but still not very much, not even as much as Little Miss had at birth. He does,
however, have a lovely little rat’s tail that seems to be growing faster than
the rest of his hair, so we might have to do something about that. Teamed with
the fact that he has no hair at all on the sides of his head, the rat’s tail
gives him an Eastern European footballer look that I’m not too keen on. He did
grow some eyebrows though, so thank goodness for small mercies.
The
Stuntman is a happy-go-lucky kind of chappie; he’ll smile at anyone and
everyone, and will happily have a chat with all of the little old ladies that
come up to talk to us (and there are quite a few). He loves other kids, and
will run up to other little ones in the park and try to play with them,
uninvited. Little Miss is much more reserved; she’ll hide her face in her hands
when a new person approaches, or hide behind me, saying “I’m a bit shy”. She
over-analyses and over-thinks everything, whereas the Stuntman is more of a do first,
think later (if at all) kind of kid. He’ll launch himself off a slippery dip
without a moment’s hesitation, where Little Miss will sit at the top thinking
about it for ages, often changing her mind about going down altogether. Funny how
two kids brought up in the exact same way are so completely different.
This
weekend I was reminded again of just how different my kids are, when we went to
our first swimming lesson. Now I know I should have started Little Miss
earlier, but it just never happened. I was pregnant with the Stuntman by the
time she turned 1, and I had no intention of splashing around in a swimming
costume with my pregnant belly in front of a whole bunch of fit surfie dads
(have you noticed that it’s mainly dads doing the swimming lessons?? Go dads!).
So anyway, she’s now 3, so she’s too old for the class where the kid goes in
with mum or dad, and she has to go in with an instructor. A stranger. A very
friendly stranger mind you, who’s obviously been well trained in working with
children, but a stranger nonetheless, and one wearing a swimming cap and
goggles. So it was always going to be a struggle to get her into the pool, but
hey, we live in Australia, so they have to learn to swim. I figured she’d see
how much fun the other kids were having and want to join in.
I
volunteered to do the class with the Stuntman, as he’s going through a
super-clingy-only-wants-mummy phase (just for the past 15 months), and we
figured it would just be easier if I went in with him. I was pleasantly
surprised to see that all the other parents (read: ‘dads’) in the class were
standing in the pool with the water right up to their armpits – I’d had visions
of standing around in waist-deep water with everything on display, which had
caused me more than a few moments of panic. But this was all OK; the water was
nice and warm, and the Stuntman soon got the hang of things and was splashing
about and kicking his little legs with the best of them. Big smiles all round.
Unfortunately,
D and Little Miss weren’t faring so well. During the middle of a round of
aquatic ‘wheels on the bus’, I heard a blood-curdling howl coming from the
other end of the pool. Recognising that primal scream, I knew straight away
that my poor Little Miss was not having a good time at all. I could just make out her little figure sitting on the top
step of the pool, hiding her face in her hands, shoulders shuddering, with D
bent over her trying to calm her down. I could see the instructor backing away
from her towards the two other toddlers in the class, and a pool staff member
rushing over from the front desk to see what was going on. The parents poolside
were rubbernecking to see who was so distraught, and why. I was gesturing
wildly to D, “Does she need me? Should I come down?”, but she calmed herself quite
quickly, really.
 |
| Some kids learning to swim (not Little Miss) |
She then spent the rest of the 30 minute class sitting on the
top step of the pool, playing with some toys and point blank refusing to even
look at the instructor, let alone go for a lap of the pool with him (which is what had initiated the howling in the first place). Quite an
expensive sit on the side of the pool, that was. Plus we had to sign up for the
whole month, so now we’ve either got to try again next weekend, or lose
thousands of dollars (not really thousands, but bloody hell it’s expensive for
what it is!).
So I’ll spend the week talking to her, telling her how much fun
it will be, and talking up the benefits of being able to swim (not drowning being the main one). And then we’ll
do it all again next weekend.
Something to look forward to!!
