Big Things for James

There has been a lot going on in the life of James lately. Learning to ride his bike, visiting new places, swimming lessons, and Vacation Bible School. The first day of VBS he did good. He had a lot of fun, and was only a little bit sad when I left. The second day, he was more upset, but I knew he would have fun. They said he took an hour to settle down. Poor guy. But when I asked if he had fun, he said yes. I asked him if there was anything he didn't like and he said no, he liked it all. Then yesterday, he had a complete meltdown and I couldn't get him to calm down or stay. Even his teacher seemed apprehensive about him staying. So we went home. Today, who knows. His swimming lessons started off with a bang, kicking and screaming. He wouldn't get near the pool. He wouldn't even stick his toes in. Any time I got near him to try to coax him in, he would jump up and cling to me like a lizard to a wall. I could hardly peel him off. Finally, after the suggestion of the instructor, I took the other two off to the playground while he basically took James into the water kicking and screaming. Of course I am wondering if I am going to scar him for life, and if he'll be afraid of the water. I just wanted to run over and rescue him. James is naturally a timid kid and I knew he would probably need some sort of encouragement to do it, but I wasn't sure that was the right thing to do. Sometimes being a mom is really hard. Anyway, the second day I really thought would be the same. All day I talked to him about how he would love swimming once he could stop being afraid. I told him being afraid is normal but if he tried it out he would realize how fun it was. I also told him to play a trick on his teacher. (He is really into tricks) I told him that when the teacher told him to do something (like stand in the pool) to just do it, and the teacher would be 'tricked' because he wouldn't believe that James would/could do it. We also prayed that James would be brave and try it out. Well, he did. He was a little timid at first but the teacher really worked with him, got him in the water and to participate in almost all the activities. He even swam out in the deep end with James. Now James says he wants to swim every single day, all the time!