In the Beginning

Special Olympics Swimming

Monday February 20, 2012

Today is the first day of our trek to a new adventure in the world of Special Olympics. Let me invite you to visit my other two blogs just so you can get a little background on where I am mentally by the time I arrive at the pool with my kids.

First go here
Autistic Proverbs On the Subject Of. . . .

Then go here
Mommy, Buggy, and GOTR In the Beginning

So now that you have read these two you are aware that my mental health is not great because of my recent injury and that I had just had a really good experience with some wonder young ladies at GOTR.

SO........

I arrive at the pool only to find that the swelling that was in my ankle is now managed to spread out so that the ankle is not as big as it was but the rest of my foot is bigger than it was.

SO.........
Now the ankle swelling is spreading into the entire foot. GREAT! The positive is that the golf ball on the side of my ankle is gone. The negative is that my foot is bigger than it should be. I decide to focus on the positive.

Sidney takes Josh to get him changed into his swimsuit and Charity and I go to get changed. Matt is parking the car since he was kind enough to drive me as close to the pool door as he could legally get the car. Eventually we are all dressed and ready for things to start and we are early.

Well my kids have NO ability to wait patiently so we are struggling with them and the wiggles. Josh is having a real problem because he had to sit in the car with Dad from 2:45 to 4 while his sister did Girls On The Run. Of course she is a little more demure since she is a little tired from all the walking. Naturally Sidney is not helping the situation because he likes to make his siblings laugh and he is showing Josh funny videos on his phone. Josh cannot manage to laugh at something without it involving these convulsive actions of his entire body. If he gets excited his entire body reacts and sitting anything remotely resembling still is practically impossible.
I love my life in Schmolland!

Eventually we do survive the 15 minutes that we have to wait for things to begin. The talking begins and as usual my kids are entranced by the new person that is speaking to them. Charity whispers something to me about the pretty skirt the lady is wearing and how beautiful the coach named Rose is. Charity love dark skinned people and Rose is of Indian or Pakistani ancestry. her skin is that lovely brown that many Indians have and it is absolutely smooth and free of any blemishes. Charity is enthralled by her appearance. Naturally they are not listening to the actual words being said but are analyzing the rise and fall of the intonation of the voices. GREAT! I will be repeating the instructions to them a thousand times because they are unable to focus on the words being said. Remember I am Autistic too so I am fighting my instinct to do exactly what they are doing so that I know what is actually going on.

Eventually we get into the water and Josh is off and swimming. They are actually pretty impressed with the fact that he did not want a kick-board to start out with and that he swam the length of the pool without assistance. He did eventually take a kickboard and swam a great deal both with and without it. Our focus was on reminding him to start "on the wall" and to "touch the wall" to signify his finish.

Charity on the other hand was a totally different story. Now this child is afraid of the water. She is just down right bone deep scared of dying from drowning and the water scares the daylights out of her. We have had her in water since she was about 6 months old and she is still scared to death of it. I can do more with her in the water because I do not cater to her fears. I am afraid of drowning too but my idea of how to overcome that fear is by being a master of the water not avoiding it.
Now remember I am the lady with the bum ankle and knee so here I am, determined to not get in the pool but to sit on the side and be my kids number one cheerleader and I see my daughter spending more time standing beside me at the edge of the pool than swimming.

Sidney is invited to participate as a swimmer so he begins to focus on his own swimming (as he should) and Charity is left to stand by me. Matt is in the pool with Josh. So in I go bum ankle and knee. Once again it is Mommy and Buggy and off we go. Eventually she is kicking her way all the way to the end of the pool on her kick-board that she thinks I am holding up for her. In reality I am doing good to keep me above the water with my two hurt legs and had let go of her kick-board the minute I had to actually start swimming because the water got too deep for me to stand. If she had known that I was not holding her she would have panicked and it would have been a disaster. However, we made it all the way back to the shallow end without incident. Luckily she never figured out that I let go when the water got to be over my head. Hopefully I can eventually let her know in a way that doesn't cause her to stop trusting me but builds her confidence in her own abilities.

So the Blakelys survived the first day of Special Olympics Swimming and My Gold Medal Winning Bowlers are well on their way to being competitive in swimming too. My ankle is not ready to be surgically removed and the knee is actually haling better after the bath in chlorinated pool water. Wednesday is now only a day away and we get to do this all over again. I am not sure I am really ready for this but we are here and we are in it for the long haul.