Sophie, Nick and my wife were in the car together and a discussion ensued between the kids. Sophie was being asked by Nick why she refused to take swimming lessons and why she was so afraid of the water. Nick has been swimming in the deep end without any assistance now for probably a year and a half. He loves swimming and so does Juliette. To help Nick understand her dislike for swimming she provided an analogy. “Swimming without floaties to me is like bicycling on two wheels for you.” She tells her brother. Nick has had a tough time taking the training wheels off and Sophie has just recently discovered biking with training wheels at age 4 and loves it. The both of them continued to try and convince the other that swimming and biking was fun but in the end they agreed to disagree.
Here are a couple of observations I have on the above interaction. Sophie, at age 4 uses an analogy at age 4?!? Really? What does that mean? I don’t think I was using analogies until I was 16. It sounds like she might make a great psychologist, or counsellor. I’m very impressed to say the least. Another observation is that swimming for Sophie and Cycling for Nicholas is just another item on the list of things that my kids don’t do well and that the parents (especially my wife) guiltily blame themselves for. This is on top of the fact that Nick & Sophie are still wearing pull-ups at night when allot of kids are out of them by age 2. That Nick burst into tears every time his feelings are hurt. That all the kids are picking up their parents bad eating habits which is that every meal is treated like an all-you-can eat buffet. That Juliette will burst into tears anytime a large amount of homework needs to be done. Every time this conversation comes up though I remind my wife about all the amazing things our kids can do including how well they play together and lookout for each other, how good Nicholas and Juliette are at soccer, how respectful they are to everyone, how much laughter they have everyday, what a great artist Juliette is, how smart Nick is and how much fire and life Sophie brings into a room. At the end of the day, all parents are equally proud of our children’s accomplishments and worried about their perceived weaknesses but this is what parenting is all about and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.