Never Underestimate

On Independence Day, our family had the opportunity to spend the afternoon swimming. Even though Carrick has taken swim lessons all summer, I was trepidacious about letting him in the pool with no water wings on. They're like my security measure for him. I know he can swim, but he often takes breaks to put his feet down at his lessons.

So letting him swim in "the deep end" could be dangerous. He completely surprised me by jumping in the deep end (5 ft) with no water wings on. To my shock and amazement, he had no trouble swimming back to the ladder. Over and over again, he jumped in, swam to the ladder, and climbed out. I had greatly underestimated his swimming skills.

Yesterday, we were swimming with friends here in town, and I didn't even bother putting his water wings on. He had his new kick board, and there were two other mom friends with me. We all kept an eye out for the kids. This time, Lily grabbed my attention with her fearlessness. With her own set of water wings on, she boldy made her way down the broad steps.

First she put her hands down on the second step, and put her legs out behind her (like a push-up position.) I had never seen her play in the pool like that before. Then, she got up, and took another step down. This brought the water up to just under her chin. She had a big smile on her face, then, BAM! She stepped off the third stair and into water that was well over her head! She had her water wings on, so instead of sinking down, she just "stood" there, floating in the water. She wiggled around a bit, caught some water in her mouth, spluttered, then recovered. I simply could not believe what I was seeing!

In addition to my children's aquatic agility, they never cease to amaze me in other ways. In the past two weeks, Lily has exponentially grown her vocabulary. Every day, she learns two or three new words. I can say an entire sentence, and she knows what I'm saying. Just the other day, I handed her a pair of flip flops and I said, "take these to Carrick." Instead of sitting down to put them on herself, like she usually does, she walked down the hall, into his room, and handed him his flip flops. Phrases like "wash hands", "go potty", "shut door", and "change diaper" are not lost on her. She completely understands and responds. Up until a few weeks ago, I had underestimated her ability to understand words.

And Carrick...well, this was the inspiration for this whole entry...

Corey has a home office, and sometimes when he's at home, but unavailable, Carrick tends to get restless. He does stuff just for attention. I've been able to identify these moments of when he's really after Corey's attention, but demanding mine (becuase I'm available to give it to him.) Last night, Corey had some important things to finish up in his office. It was later in the evening, Lily was tired and whiney, and I was left to take care of bedtime.

I got Lily to sleep, and was able to give Carrick my undivided attention. Instead of letting him pick out a show, or even me trying to watch one of my grown up shows, I decided to try something new, something to break our routines, and share some time with Carrick. During a recent bout of declttering, I came across the missing dvds from our collection, one of which is my all-time favorite play/movie, " A Midsummer Night's Dream." I had also recently told Carrick (my own, shortened version) of the Borrower's story (which I am finishing up reading.) In this story, there is a "wild" Borrower boy named "Spiller". Carrick loves this character, and requests stories about him. So I make up bedtime stories about the wild little boy Borrower named Spiller. (Carrick identifies with him, no doubt.)

So, I pitched the "fairy story" to Carrick and mentioned that Spiller was in it. I fast-forwarded to the scenes that contained the woods and the fairies. I was not completely lying to him about Spiller being in the movie. Sure enough, there were several scenes with wild-looking nyphs that could pass for Spiller. In each scene, I would say, "Look, there's Spiller!"

With his interest piqued, I proceded to semi-narrate over the tedious Shakespearean dailogue. I explained simplified versions of what was happening. "Puck is going to put the flower juice on that guy's eyes. He wants him to love that other girl. She loves him, but he loves her best friend..." and so on. I even explained that the Fairy King was going to play a trick on his Queen. He was going to make her fall in love with something ugly, and then laugh like a joke about it.

To my utter amazement, he completely followed the storyline. He even asked questions about it! Now, if you've seen A Midsummer Night's Dream, you know that the plot gets kind of tangled. Who is tricking whom, who is in love with whom...but he was right there. And the cameos of Spiller just made it that much more fun.

At the end of the show, I told him that was my favorite movie. He declared, "I like it too." *Sigh* I just wanted to cry. Not only could I share one of my favorite things with this little boy whom I love so much, but I was so floored by his comprehension of what was going on. A kindergartener enjoying Shakespeare? Never underestimate your kids.  You'll only be cheating yourself out of an amazing experience.