Number 4 has always been super headstrong and super tough.
I was at the Y with her when she was 2. She was running down the hall and she totally wiped out, flat on her face, in front of about 10 moms who were sitting there waiting for their kids to finish swim lessons. There was a collective gasp of horror, as if they had just witnessed a brutal beating or a decapitation.
“Come on Number 4, get up,” I said.
The ladies looked at me like I was Mommy Dearest.
Number 4 got right up and ran over to me.
“Wow, she’s tough,” one of the Stepfords said.
“In more ways than one,” I said, and off we went.
Number 4 is obsessed with flowers. When she was 3, she plucked two bees, one with each hand off of some flowers she was looking at, and squished them. They stung the crap out of both of her thumbs.
She walked over to me and said, “Mom, that bug hurt me,” and she gave me the double thumbs-up.
Her thumbs were huge. They looked fake. And she never even made a sound or shed a tear. In fact, I gave her a popsicle after that, so then she began trying to get stung again in order to get more popsicles.
When she was 3 I tried getting her to stop wearing a pull-up at night, but she just wouldn’t have it. So I gave up. And then on her 4th birthday she walked downstairs, and the first thing she said was, “Mom, I’m 4 now, so I don’t have to wear a pull-up.”
And that was that. She never wore one again.
This past year I ran in a race on New Year’s Day that started at the high school. All the kids watched. Well, most of the kids watched, and Number 4 decided to run laps around the around the track on her own.
The next day she ran laps in our backyard. It’s pretty big, so if you run the perimeter, it’s probably about a tenth of a mile.
Number 4 ran for 33 minutes.
Without stopping.
She started out dressed like the Michelin Man, and by the end she had stripped down to just her sweatshirt. She was like a little Forest Gump. The only reason she stopped was because it was getting dark out and I told her she had to.
“But Mom, have I done 4 miles yet?”
So yesterday was the beginning of the 3rd week of swim practice.
Number 4 loves it, but she still won’t swim freestyle with her face in the water out in the “deep water” because, well, because she has decided she just doesn’t want to.
I know at some point she is randomly just going to decide it is time, so I don’t really say anything to her about it.
I brought Number 7 along with me to practice yesterday. Number 3 and 4 ran down to their practice.
Number 4 usually takes about 15 minutes to actually get in the water. The coaches are very patient and understanding, and just let her do her thing.
I don’t know, now that I think of it, they might just be afraid of her…
Either way, they are pretty cool with her.
So yesterday Number 4 decided to jump right in rather than wait to get started.
She swam her Tarzan-like-head-out-of-the-water freestyle to the other end. She stopped for about a minute, and then made her way back. I stopped paying attention and got a bottle for Number 7.
I was half-listening, and I heard a kid making some struggling noises.
“Unh….uuunnnhh…UUUUUNNNNNHHHHH!!!”
I looked down at the pool, and Number 4 was about half-way down, clinging to the lane line.
“I can’t….. I can’t… I CAAAAAAAANNNNNNN”TTT!!!”
Oh you have got to be kidding me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I looked over to where the coaches were. They were both looking up at me, with a worried “What should we do?” kind of look on their faces.
And so I did what any concerned parent would do.
I pretended not to know what was going on and continued giving the baby her bottle.
Number 4 refused to budge.
One of the coaches tore off her clothes, jumped in, and hauled an overly dramatic Number 4 to the edge, where she miraculously recovered, climbed out, smiled, and then happily skipped over to me.
“Can I have a towel Mom?”
“Um, what the heck was that all about?”
“Oh, I don’t know Mom…
…I just felt as if I couldn’t go on.”
You and me both kid, you and me both.
“Are you done practicing?”
“Nope! Hey Mom, watch me do backstroke!”
And with that, she ran back to practice and swam about 6 more unassisted, drama-free laps.
Today’s first meet should be really interesting…
VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! PLEASE!!!
All you need to do is click on the banner above to register a vote for me!
You can vote one time every 24 hours from every computer and cell phone! THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!! I really appreciate your support!
Check out and “like” the not-your-average-mom.com facebook page!
doh! i totally should have done that mid-mile at patriots. She’s my new hero.
Is number4 a lot like her mother was growing up? 🙂
You would think, but I was actually super shy when I was a kid, and I was a major rule follower. Things didn’t start to go downhill until I got into high school 😉