Swimming

I used to love "swimming". I don't actually know how to swim, but I enjoyed being in water. Back then when I saw water, I said "jump" and I jumped in. Many years ago (probably 20 years ago), we were at a lakeside one time. I kept running towards the lake wanting to jump in. My mom made full use of that opportunity to train my gross motor skill. After I got to the shore, she took me back a distance. I ran towards the water again and then she took me back. Despite my mom's creative efforts, to this day I still don't run very well.

There was another time. My mom was mopping the floor. She had a bucket of water in the kitchen. When she went out to the living room to do something, she saw me moved quickly along the hallway towards the kitchen. I could really run when I was up to mischief. By the time she caught up with me, I was already stuck inside the bucket.

My mom used to take me swimming weekly. Since I enjoyed it so much, she registered me for Special Olympics swimming. That was about 10 years ago and I participated for about one year only. Initially, my support workers went with me. Then, for some unknown reason, I started to become reluctant to go swimming. My mom had to come along to encourage me to participate. Often times, when I arrived at the place I stopped at the general office area instead of going to the change room. Some of you may be able to guess why I chose to linger there. They had a fan in the office! My mom would borrow their fan to get me to follow her to the change room. Gradually, I absolutely refused to get into my swimming trunk.

My mom felt sad that I lost interest in swimming, as it is important for me to be physically active. Due to my strong resistance, my mom decided not to force me to continue to attend the swimming program. From time to time efforts were made to take me to swim. However, whenever anybody tried to put a swimming trunk on me, I refused. It got to a point that I would refuse to put shorts on because I thought that was for swimming too. So, my mom backed off and waited for a few years before she tried again. I wouldn't even enter the building when she got me to the Jasper Place Recreation Centre. Then she tried a different pool. I went into the building, but I backed out as soon as I saw the pool inside.

When we went on the Alaska cruise, my mom got me into the pool once. After that, I wouldn't even get near the swimming pool deck. When I went to Disney World with Emily and Peter, they got me into the pool a couple of times. I was reluctant initially, but Peter managed to get me to dive under water to pick up pebbles from the bottom of the pool. My mom was so happy that I obviously enjoyed the experience.

Last week, my mom decided to take me swimming again with the help of a support worker. We got into the Jasper Place Recreation Centre with no problem because I have been going to the exercise room in that facility. When my mom and the support worker got me into the change room, I hang onto my pants so that they could not put the swimming trunk on me. With gentle persuasion, my mom managed to get me to cooperate. The water in the pool was nice and warm.