WARNING: This post is filled with shameless bragging about my son.
Darius is a little fish. I'd like to take some credit for it. For one, I was a little fish when I was a kid. Second, I've been dunking the kid in water the moment his umbilical cord fell off. I couldn't think of anything worse than a kid who was afraid of water. I wasn't gonna be the mother of the child who screamed bloody murder whenever a drop of water splashed on his face.
I took Darius into the pool when he was 8 weeks old and never turned back. He's had swim lessons since he was a year old. At three and half he could already swim half the distance of a 25yd pool. So this year, I decided to put him into swim team. We are lucky to live in a neighborhood with a cabana club. That club had a swim team of roughly 130 kids. Darius is the youngest kid on the team. So far, in the competitions we've had with other teams, I think he may be the youngest kid in the league.
Darius loves being on the swim team. He's never once complained about the daily practice or the fact that he spends hours waiting to swim at a swim meet. He thinks wearing a swim cap is the coolest thing ever. And he's totally clueless to the fact that he's the smallest and the youngest. The coaches have given him so much attention that I'm pretty sure he thinks he's the super star.
But here's the kicker. He's been beating kids who are one and two years older than him. All kids under the age of 6 swim in the age group. And Darius has beat some of those kids in the swim meets. In fact, right this very instant, my son holds the team record for the best time this season in Breaststroke. My four year old boy, who I totally expected to come in dead last in every race, is actually beating other kids. Older kids. Kids who don't want to play with a "baby" when they hear he's four (well, now technically he's five but the baby thing has sort of stuck).
I am so ridiculously proud that I have to constantly bite my upper lip to prevent myself from yelling at those kids that while my "baby" may be younger than them, he can kick their ass in the pool.
Doing the Butterfly. Sure, he may look like he's gonna drown at any minute, but the kid makes it across the pool doing his four-year-old version of every stroke.
