So much more than Swim Lessons

This was our second year to put Colton in Swim lessons. When he was two it was so awful I just didn’t have it in me to do it last Summer so I thought this year would be good. What four year old doesn’t want to go swimming?? MINE, that’s who.
Colton was terrified. He did not want to go, but I explained to him that this was a must, he had to learn so he could be safe. Little did I know he would learn SO MUCH more than just swimming… and I would learn so much more about my sweet little boy.
On the way to each lesson Colton would have tears streaming down his face and his little lip would quiver the whole way there. This is when I knew He was truly terrified. Having dealt with major fear myself, one part of me wanted to turn around each week and take him home so he didn’t have to feel that fear, but I knew that was not doing him any favors, that he had to go through with this. So we started to pray out loud in the car on the way. I guess this made him feel better because after I would be done praying he would say, “mom pray again”. There were even times he would get out in the middle of his lesson and come to me with tears in his eyes, “mom can you pray before I get back in?” Talk about melting my heart.
This is where I really started to see bravery in Colton. Every class I could tell he wanted to break down and scream and bawl, but he fought that so hard and minimalized it to just tears and lip quivers.
One day on the way I could hear him in the back whispering something so I turned the music down and could hear him telling himself, “you can do this, you can do this”. I drove the rest of the way crying and thinking to myself “this is what it is like to be so proud of your children you want to bust”.
I thought I was putting him in to learn how to swim but instead he learned how to face his fears. He learned that he could pray himself through any situation. And I learned that I can’t save him from everything. I learned that sometimes I have to watch him hurt, sometimes I have to watch him be scared, sometimes I have to stay out of the way so God can come in and do his thing.

On a side fun note, I got to reconnect with one of the moms that was in my Lamaze classes 4 years ago when I was pregnant with Colton. Her son was in the swim class too and it was a lot of fun to re-hash the last four years since we went through the birthing experience.