Means To A Positive End

"Come on then Little H..it's time to pick up Hxxxx and go for your swimming lessons."

Little H is going for swimming lessons together with Big H nowadays. They go to different classes although their classes are on the same day and same time - Big H goes to Beginners 2 (after passing Beginners 1) and Little H goes to 'Aquatots 2' which is a class for 3 and half to 4 and a half year olds.

The Aquatots 2 lessons are not really swimming lessons, obviously. They are just to help the young children with their confidence in the water and with using the floats. And of course, other types of learning will come naturally too, like 'listening to instructions' and 'making friends' in a non school environment.

Little H in his newly acquired swimsuit that covers his chest
and supposedly makes him feel warmer..ye ke??

Little H always used to find it a bore to wait for Big H to finish his swimming lessons - he would bother me non stop or just lie down half on the seat and half on my lap and fall asleep while waiting for his brother's lesson to end. So Mr S and I decided to enrol him into a class as well. Although he has been a little apprehensive about doing the many activities in the water, Little H seemed to be enjoying his classes and looks to be coping in his lessons.

But on that day, Little H said, "Swimming lessons? But I have hingus and cough, mama."

Cough cough..sniffle sniffle.

I looked him over and made a quick decision. "Sikit je...you're well enough to swim...the pool is very warm, right?" He was not feeling very well the whole of the previous week but he seemed to have recovered and has been well the last 3-4 days although I admit that he had a little hingus still, but it's not like his nose is runny or anything like that...

He just nodded.

And so we went for the lesson and he made some progress - at the end of the lesson, when the children were asked to line up by the side of the shallow pool and jump (not dive) into it, (I suppose it's just for the fun of the splash and also to help them overcome any fear of the water) Little H always requested his teacher to hold his hand when his turn came to jump but on that day, he jumped bravely and made a splash without his teacher's help!

Well done, Little H!

After all, he did keep going on about 'sinking' ("Noooo!! I'm going to sink! I'm going to sink!") everytime we asked him to lower his face into the water in the shallow pool during our holiday back in Malaysia. And he was wearing arm floats and I was holding him at the time too!

It was indeed a good progress.

But the moment we reached home, I saw that he looked tired and could only finish so much of his dinner and while I was praying upstairs, he fell asleep on the carpet. I checked his forehead and sure enough, he had a temperature.

That was when I felt soooooooo guilty about my decision that he should go for the swimming lesson that I had to sit myself down for a while and convince myself that I am not a bad mother and that it was one of those decisions that you make that didn't exactly turned out right, but still, sometimes we need to make a quick decision in life and well, life's never perfect.

But Little H made me feel worse when he said as I put him to bed upstairs, "Mama, I TOLD YOU that I wasn't feeling well.....I TOLD YOU.."

**Sigh**

Of course, I apologised profusely and hugged him tight and told him that he should have told me that he wasn't feeling very well - which he didn't.

Of course I could not let him blame me for it 100%!

And as a errr..'creative' parent, I took the opportunity to turn the tables around and used the situation to my advantage and told him that he should know the reason why he keeps getting sick, not like Big H who seldom falls sick. I told him that it was because unlike his brother, I have to force Little H to eat his fruits and as for his veg, well, forget it!

"Look at Big H!" I said to Little H. "He will always finish his vegetables during dinner and even request fruits for snacks before meal times. He always eat his fruit at school as well! That's why he doesn't fall sick as often as you do..."

Kesian..demam-demam pun kena lecture...

Mr S came back from work and I told him to give say the same to Little H as well and to tell him straight that from now on, he MUST eat his veges. Little H just kept quiet but I know we had convinced him.

Sure enough, the next day, when I tried to feed him some vegetables with his lunch, he just opened his mouth without the usual protests and chewed and swallowed without any problems. A big progress since he used to run to the nearest bin the moment he starts to realise that there's a piece of vege in his mouth...

Alhamdulillah until today (it has been a week now), he still eats his veges without any problems.

Thank Allah something good after all came out of that quick decision to take him to his swimming lesson, albeit looking back, it certainly wasn't the right decision, I think.

Otherwise, knowing myself, I would still be feeling guilty about the whole incident...