Day 2

Yes I am late writing this but sleeping on my computer causes me too much pain to try to blog after our busy days. So after GOTR with Charity we are at Special Olympics Swimming. Of course Joshua is our little fish and he is making everyone tired watching him swim the length of the pool over and over again so we actually have to reign him in a bit. They are beginning to work on his strokes with him a little. They are trying to make them cleaner and improve his kicking. I don't want to diminish what Josh is doing but we all knew this was going to be his event. Josh is a fish. He loves the water and is a natural. It is no surprise that he is doing well. Unlike the bowling where we were jumping for joy at any pins that either of them actually hit we have "expectations" in swimming.

Well.......
We have expectations for Joshua.

We would have been thrilled if Charity avoided a screaming meltdown.

So......

We of course are not disappointed in Joshua (as if we could be regardless of his performance). But the real surprise here is Charity. Once again she is getting the message of GOTR and applying it across her world. She is believing in her own self enough to stretch out her wings and fly. I am watching the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly. Today she swam the length of the pool with a kick-board (this is her level of performance) several times by herself. You have to understand that when she started out on Monday she would not go 6 inches without someone else holding the kick-board. Then eventually I got her to go the entire distance in the pool with my help. What she did not know was that part of the way I let go of her board.

Now Charity has a real fear of water. That fear is bone deep. But there was a wonderful young lady that was there as an assistant coach that showed Charity a way of holding onto the board so it did not sink down so far into the water. This helped her to keep her head above the water better and she became less fearful. All of a sudden she was not waiting on mom to help her of swim with her. She was swimming lap after lap with that board all by herself. All of a sudden my butterfly was turning into a fish. If someone said something to me and I stopped to talk to them she just kept going without me. I was so excited for her and you could see the sense of accomplishment on her face every time she passed me.

Now we have to share lanes with other people and the young man in the lane with us has Downs Syndrome. He was helping her a great deal. He is an experienced swimmer and has been to Special Olympics swim meets numerous times. he was her number one cheerleader. If she seemed to be slowing down he would call to her to come on and touch the wall. Every time she did he would give her a high five. It was wonderful.

Sidney is doing well too but he is a little resistant to instruction so he may not fair well until he learns to listen better. He can swim the length of the pool so he is good on that and eventually he may even improve his strokes well enough to be competitive. We'll see......

But for now my overwhelming joy is my Buggy Girl so watch for more on her swimming adventures and follow our GOTR adventures.