Notes to self.

My newly minted four year old had a rite of passage today.  She starting swimming lessons.

I had fully expected her swim instructor to be an underfed teenager.  But no.  Her instructor is the same age as my grandma.  Not kidding.  Two days older than dirt.  She’s been teaching preschoolers how to swim for so long that they have named a kiddie pool after her.  And then, said pool became so old that they tore it down.  And she’s still teaching kids how to swim.

At one point, 10 minutes into the lesson, she had made her judgement about my pride and joy.  And she hollers across the pool to the ring of benched mommies “Who is Ella’s mother?”  I raise my hand, scared kind of.  “You need to have a talk with her about following directions.”  All I could squeak out was Okay.  And then I looked to the herd of maternal protection and rolled my eyes as if to say Like I haven’t tried.

I don’t know how tomorrow morning will go.  I hesitate to use the term “battle axe” but I fear that my child will be kicked out of yet another organized activity for doing her own thing.  Bright but active.  That’s the official line.  But the truth is that teachers love the kids that fall into line.  The kids that smile and nod.  And that’s not my kid.  She never stops talking.  She does what the other kids do but in her own time and her own space.  And I can’t step all over that.  I can’t let anyone else do it either.  Not even if there is an antiquated pool named after her.