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A School of Fish

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Something pretty cool happened on Monday at Kenzie's swimming lesson. Not only did she do awesome during her lesson, but her teacher, Ms. Shunda, wanted to share her testimony with me. She told me that years ago when they had their first child, her family felt that the Lord was calling her to stay at home with her children. So, she left her engineering job that she loved and was pretty good at to become a stay-at-home mom. She said she knew that the Lord would provide for them. They did not have the funds to purchase Florida Prepaid and believed that once her children were college aged, they would have a way to make sure they attended school. Her daughter is now about to graduate from high school. She is in the top of her class and did very well on the ACT. She was given a full scholarship to attend Tuskeegee, but did not really like the school. She wanted to attend UF. She was admitted, but with no financial aid. Then, she was offered a full scholarship to Howard University. The Lord provided for them and now she wants to pay it forward. She and I have talked before about one of the reasons we have chosen to only do 10 lessons for Kenzie this year and why we are holding off on Will. One of those reasons is the funds. We have made sacrifices along the way to ensure that I am able to remain home as long as possible. Now, Steven and I had already made the decision to add on 10 more lessons for Kenzie this year. We decided that since she is doing so very well this year, that we want to build on that while we can so we are making it work and making other sacrifices where necessary. Ms. Shunda then offered us 10 free lessons for Will this year as a gift. No charge. She wanted to pay it forward and we were the people that came to her mind. It is truly a gift for us. We were waiting for Will not only because we felt he might be a bit young at this point, but also because of the funds we would need to come up with the money to enroll 2 children in swimming lessons. Due to the style of lessons we chose, 1-on-1 where I do not have to be in the pool and Red Cross certified, our lessons are slightly more expensive than some of the other options around here, but we knew it was the best option for our kids and our family.

That meant that starting today, Will is now on his way to officially becoming a fish too. I have mentioned before that Will is an entirely different type of kid than Kenzie. Where Kenzie is the world's biggest social butterfly, Will is super friendly but more reserved and very attached to me. Where Kenzie is not always so sure about water in her eyes and generally has more fears, Will is less concerned with all of that and more concerned with just having fun as long as Mommy is nearby. Definitely 2 different kids. Each with their own strengths and weaknesses so we were not sure how this would go for Will. We watched Kenzie do pretty well last year, but continue to be grasped by fear in the water most of the time. This year, she is excelling. She doesn't have all the same fears. At times she is still concerned about water in her eyes, but she generally does really well now without any issues. Now, on to Will...


Will was good watching Kenzie's lesson, as usual. Well, really I end up chasing him around the area for 20 minutes while Kenzie does awesome. Then, it was his turn. Will's screaming began the moment I handed him off. Not because he was fearful of the pool, but more because he was fearful of going to someone else he doesn't really know. I might have mentioned before how awesome Ms. Shunda is. She is so calming and any time Will was being held and talked to, he was calm. It was when she was no longer holding him close that he would get upset. It was a bit like watching "Kenzie - Year 1 Revisited". A lot of tears but I know now that it is certainly a process. He is fine in the pool with me, but he just wasn't sure about being there without me.



The worst part for me was when he started doing what we call his "you, me point" where he points to himself and then me over and over again and then started saying "up, up, up." We all held on though and he finished his first lesson. He cried during the toys at the end, but he did what he was supposed to. He didn't seem too phased by going underwater so maybe we will at least have that going for us. He will be doing 2 lessons a week for the next 5 weeks (whereas Kenzie will remain at 3 a week). We will see how it goes. =)



Oh, and here is Kenzie doing awesome at her lesson.



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