I used to burden myself with the notion that I must teach my children all things. I am, after all, homeschooling mother. The bigger the challenge, bring it on!

That was back when I was schooling two children and having babies and what not.

I found out that I can’t legally teach everything, (hello, driver’s ed!), and I physically can’t teacher other things, not the least of which is swimming!

I can’t do much more than get the kids to the pool and have them practice what someone else taught them. So imagine my relief and joy when I was able to coach my 9 year old to dive yesterday at my brother and sister-in-law’s pool.

It was a lovely scene. I’m holding the 3 year old, who’s doing her usual flailing and trying to get away, but don’t you dare put me down mommy dance, and I’m watching the 7 year old who knows enough about swimming to scare me to death as he inches toward the deep water. Meanwhile, my 11 year old, who knows how to dive, but refuses, was doing something I no doubt considered slacking, because she wasn’t swimming laps and she wasn’t using the diving board. At least she wasn’t drowning, either.

The 7 year old is very driven and competitive, and she wanted to learn to dive. I have so many children that I could have sworn we’d been through this drill before–last year, actually. That was probably with the 11 year old…

Anyway, I’m barking out commands the whole time, rocking my old lady cap again. “tuck your chin,…” “I know,” she interrupts, and she demonstrates what to do with her arms. “Streamline!” I am a drill sergeant with this poor kid. I command the 11 year old to dive and show her sister how it’s done. Eleven year old is not thrilled to dive, even though she is a born teacher if I’ve ever seen one.

I am watching 7 year old, holding 3 year old, commanding 9 year old to squat and do a granny dive/baby dive, and telling her big sister to demonstrate. We are the only people in the pool at the time, but there are several adults having a barbecue behind us.

I am embarrassed by my loud forcefulness, but that’s me in the pool with the kids. All fun and games.

After a while, 9 year old gets the hang of the baby dives and is ready to stand and dive off the board. She does it! We are thrilled. She tries again, and it looks like a flop to me. “Was that a flop or a dive?” I ask her. She doesn’t know. “Does it hurt? If it hurts, it’s a flop. If it doesn’t, it’s a dive.” One of the adults at the barbecue laughs at my assessment. It hurt.

Unfased, 9 year old continues at it until she can consistently dive. Then she was ready for a canonball.

Which inspired 7 year old to do canonballs in the shallow end, and I’m thinking, is it time to go yet?

Cullen Jones recounts a funny 2008 Olympic story in a recent article in the NY Times.

Michael Phelps wakes Jones to tell him that LeBron James and other basketball stars want to meet them in the lobby of the hotel. Cullen goes downstairs and hears LeBron talking to Phelps about going for his 8th gold medal. But when he meets Cullen, LeBron exclaims, “Wait, you got a brother on the team?”

I know Jones is just living his life. He happens to be living his life as a professional swimmer, complete with a Nike endorsement and a job with Make a Splash. But Nike et al are betting on him transcending also ran status, and becoming Tiger or Venus and Serena.

Cullen Jones is taking it one step at a time, first battling performance anxiety that ended up excluding him from the 2004 Olympic team. That’s not even mentioning the demands of sprinting the 50 free–where it’s much better if you don’t breathe for the whole heat.

He’s currently competing in the World Championships–FINA in Shanghai. According to his twitter page, he competes out of the pool as well:

“Well the spades tournament is tied up 2-2 with @MichaelPhelps &@ryanlochte and @Rcberens and I”

Let’s wish him much success–in spades, in the pool, and in life!

I had an unusual challenge at the aforementioned family reunion. We had a formal banquet on Saturday evening. That in and of itself was not unusual; I’m sure many families do the same. But after traveling 15 hours to get there, living out of a suitcase, and taking two young children who EXPECTED to use the pool?

I worried just a touch about that formal evening.

Just in case, I had packed all my hair products and tools, so if I had to wash my hair, I could. But I didn’t really want to add Memphis humidity to the mix of stress when it came to my hair on this already stressful trip.

So I wore my old lady swim cap.

This cap is tight, and I already had a headache, not to mention the fact that I’m usually ashamed to be seen in it. But I knew it would protect my hair from all the splashing involved with swimming with children. I also knew that I would have my hands full with my 3 year old who thinks she can swim, so I hold her as tightly as I can while simultaneously letting her kick and wiggle like a fish.

To my surprise, I got compliments for my cap! And I looked around and saw other women wearing clear shower caps, and I had to admit that my flower cap was actually pretty. And it went with my suit, so that was a bonus. I looked pulled together, in spite of myself.

I have also noted that this cap will keep the hair dry if you don’t swim on your back, so that’s a bonus too, if you’re looking to swim without getting your hair wet.

I know, swimming and dry hair do not go together, and it sounds ridiculous to even mention it, but it really comes in handy if you’re swimming laps in the 10 degree winter, or you go to a family reunion in Memphis and need to look good later that night.

My story about a friend’s experience at the beach sent chills through my daughter, and she questioned whether she really wanted to be a lifeguard. But she went through the training anyway, and my daughter was a lifeguard for 2 years at the Y. Now she’s moved onto a different phase in her life, involving glamor and beauty.

This weekend, we went to the family reunion together, and I thought I’d take the babies to the pool during our down time. My lifeguard daughter joined us, but she hadn’t planned on swimming.

The hotel pool was typical: swim at your own risk. It also suggested that adults accompany children to the pool at a 3 children to 1 adult ratio. I saw maybe 2 adults and two pools and a hot tub full of kids! Everyone was black, and most were non-swimmers. (That is being charitable, I would say nobody could swim, but that would be assuming).

It was a disaster in the making. My daughter cringed as she saw a teenaged girl dive into the 4 foot water.

I had a raging headache and wanted to just take my children and leave the splashing, disorderly mess behind. My lifeguard made a quick decision and decided to go ‘on duty.’ She told the diving girl, who tried her stunt a second time, that she could break her neck diving into the shallow water, and she should limit her diving to the 6 foot water. My daughter prefaced her comments with, “I don’t mean to get in your business or anything, but I am a lifeguard, and you could break your neck diving in the shallow water…”

The girl thanked my daughter, told her she didn’t know that, and seeing as how she couldn’t swim, she would refrain from diving.

Pretty soon, most of the people in the pool were clamoring for swim lessons. “If I’d intended to get my hair wet, I would have taught them to swim,” my daughter, who was in glamor mode at the pool continued.

Eventually the group at the pool settled down and left.

I smell a learn to swim business opportunity–leasing swim lessons and lifeguards at hotels.
How would that work?

Discovery Channel’s show, Surviving the Cut makes you wonder what you thought you were doing in the pool. The show follows wannabe elite naval forces through intense training, including swimming in 45 degree water at night.

In a recent episode, we watched a black man, Guy Smith swim over a mile in 45 degree water with an injured leg. The group of SWCC candidates started out with 40 and ended up with 10 men over the course of 50 days of grueling basic training.

Next stop? Advanced training.

Guy Smith made the first cut. We’ll see how he does in round two.

On my last post, I mentioned the embarrassment that was the black chef on Extreme Chefs. I hadn’t seen the worst yet. When the show ran again hours later, I saw how the eager brother ran to the lake, beat the other two chefs to the punch, and dove in. He proceeded to go nowhere fast, but down. Blaming the seaweed and the fact that he was wearing clothes, the chef floundered in the same place for a minute, before lifeguards on the scene dove in to rescue him.

The black chef was then given a time penalty of 5 minutes after the last chef finished the aquatic challenge.

And the rest happened as I reported earlier.

Same moral. When it comes to swimming, what you don’t know can hurt you. Or kill you.
That is all.