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| Bed time story time! |
I was in the middle of reading the bed time story the other night when the phone interrupted our story time. However as I was reading a genuine 1985 copy of He-Man and the lost Dragon (it turned out to be a Stegosaurus), wifey answered the phone and I continued with the tale of deception and overly muscled people. Fifi complained that She-Ra (Princess of Power) didn’t make an appearance but my reply was forestalled by the return of a beaming wifey.
The kids go to swimming lessons on a Sunday morning at some great classes (in a not so great pool) run by a lady called Brenda, a contemporary of Sharon Davies, who’s swimming career was cut short by a bad back injury. She knows her onions and teaches technique first and foremost. Fifi and the boy have been in the same class for the last 3 or 4 months. Fifi started swimming a year earlier than the boy and has more or less caught him up- she is obviously not as strong or powerful in the water as he is, what with being 4 compared to his 6 but she’s a lot happier getting her face wet and pretty fearless.
Brenda had phoned to say she had decided it was time to put both of them up a class. The boy was coasting slightly and could do with being pushed whilst Fifi was just a natural. The next class up is a mix of reception and year 1 kids but Fifi is the first nursery aged kid to progress to that level for a very long time.
So the reaction to this good news then…
Fifi had a smile so wide, it threatened to meet round the back of her head and make the top of her head fall off. She was enormously proud. The boy? He burst into tears and was inconsolable for about 15 minutes. When he calmed down enough to be coherent, he was full of comments about how it would be too scary, how they would make him put his face under water and the pool would be too deep. Brenda’s not daft, and it was for this very reason she called ahead to give us the good news.
The boy is definitely a creature of habit- he likes watching the same films over and over and going to the same places time and time again. Fifi on the other hand embraces change and new experience with the same gusto she tackles rollercoasters.