Swimterrible

Today was the first day of swimming lessons for Charlie at Swimtastic. The whole thing started off on the wrong foot due to a stupid easter basket Charlie got from daycare right before he left. When we got to lessons he wanted to carry it in with him, but I made him leave it in the car. He had a knock down drag out temper tantrum as soon as we hit the door. I knew that wasn't going to make for a good start, so I backed down and went back to get the stupid thing out of the car. Once we were in the changing room, and he realized he was going to get to go swimming too instead of just watching Evan he was willing to put it down, but by then the tone had already been set. We had to wait maybe 3 minutes for his class session to start which set him off again, because in typical toddler fashion he wanted to go RIGHT NOW. (Of course to make this Kodak moment even better I saw two of my families from school-so they got to see me in all of my mommy glory!) He entered the lesson as one FURIOUS toddler, so it took his teacher and I awhile to coax him into the water and calm him down. Once there, he didn't want to have anything to do with her plans for learning, he just wanted to go down the water slide. The first 15 minutes were probably spent with him screaming. Luckily he is the only person in his class so she was able to devote all her attention to his screaming squirming wiggly body. The girl had the patience of a saint. FInally, they hit on the idea of throwing some balls in the water for him to play with, and then he settled in happily for the last few minutes. The teacher, Charlie, and I were all completely exhausted by the end of it. When will I get to be the mom who blithley takes her child into sports activities and lessons where they happily follow directions and act like normal children? Sam's got a lot of pressure riding on him! I deserve one normal kid, right?

On the way home I turned around in the car and asked Charlie if he had fun. He gave me the evil eyeball glare he is famous for and shouted, "NO!!!!"