For me, one of the keys to finding joy as a single mom is that I get to witness so many triumphs in my kids’ lives. This kid right here? She had a couple of bad pool experiences when she was little. And she became terrified of getting her head or face wet. Terrified.
She took swim lessons for a while, but it came time to put her face in the water and she panicked. So we stopped lessons.
I know some parents would say to push her through it. Make her face her fears and conquer them. But I don’t think she would have learned much from me pushing her and it certainly wouldn’t have helped build our relationship.
She loved being in the pool (without getting her face wet) and our dear friend let us use her pool whenever we wanted to. A few years ago, her sister helped her slowly work towards getting her face wet, all the way through going fully underwater. Suddenly she loved it! This photo is from that first day of going underwater. My girl, so very proud of herself for having overcome the fear she had for over half of her life. My girl calling, “Hey, Mom! Watch this!” just before she leapt in the air, twirled around and splashed in.
And I got to be the one to witness it. I got to be the one to cheer her on and take the photos and videos and jump up and applaud her. Some days, this single mom life is pretty good.
