Seems swimming lessons are not just all about the obvious; i.e. learning to swim! No, where my son is concerned it is also about mastering the art of “the climb”.
Of course I see the relevance of teaching this essential water safety skill but that then translates into this newly acquired ability permeating other areas of our life. Like Harrison wanting to climb out of the bath at will; or the strong desire he now exudes to scale heights including the dining table, lounge, and, well, any other surface that is hovering off the ground.
His real flair for manoeuvring this latest talent came last weekend when we gathered with the extended family for a weekend of fun. Harrison had been left, in good faith, to put himself to sleep in his pram while the adults continued with out get-together. Except that Harrison had other ideas. It wasn’t until Grandpa Webeck questioned an unusual noise emanating from the general vicinity of Harrison’s so called place of sleep that we found our son, sans pram, standing and playing happily with the phone on the bedside table! It appears its not that difficult to climb backwards out of a pram, whilst still ensconced in your sleeping bag, and toddle over to the area in which you’d like to play!
Once securely back in his spot for sleep, I went about diligently popping my head in and ensuring that (a) the pram was still and therefore sleep had descended on my boy and that (b) he wasn’t again off playing in some corner of the room.
Feeling smug that we’d stopped the malarky in its course, it wasn’t until the Husband enquired, with an arched eyebrow, if I’d actually bothered to check my son properly at all, that I began to suspect there was something rank in the state of Denmark.
Yep, sure enough, he’d once more performed another complicated backwards extraction that Houdini himself would have been proud of, and was happily playing – in the cupboard!
So thank you swimming lessons. Yes, you are arming my son with essential skills but it’s just the army training that he’s practising in conjunction that is giving me cause for concern. God help me if we ever forget to put the side of his cot up – I think a crash course in abseiling would be on the cards then!
