SNAP Mondays | Goggles

I had a hard time justifying my purchase of a new swimsuit, since I don't swim competitively anymore. My senior year (high school, that is) team suit was wearing thin in a couple of areas. 93-degree chlorinated water has degraded my suit faster in two months than in the last four years of recreational swimming at Hearst. It was time. I ordered a TYR Diamondback grab bag suit since it cost less than half of what I paid for my team suit. Basically, a grab bag suit means that they send you any suit they have on hand, in whatever color or style. I am now the owner of a swimsuit emblazoned with fluorescent orange streaks. I look like a tiger. I was kind of hoping they'd send me a green suit (since in high school, our school color was green and I've only owned green suits) or a blue suit (go Bears!). But okay, you get what you paid for.

Anyways, that's not the point of my blog post.

On Monday, K and I conferred with the therapist and decided we were going to stop pushing the goggles thing. So we just played the entire hour--on noodles, with a kickboard, with little toys. E loves to have water in his mouth. I'm not sure if he drinks it or not, but he's always filling his mouth with warm pool water and letting it dribble out (or once, spitting it in my face). I'm trying to teach him how to blow bubbles so he can hold his breath.

As part of an exercise, we dropped sinking toys to the bottom of the shallow end and had E try to dive for them. At first he cheated by using his toes to hook the little green seahorse. But then we dived as an example, and he followed! He needed to hold onto our arms for leverage, though. Which is a great first step, if you ask me. In a moment of unthinking, I took my own goggles from my face and put them on E's. Just the suction cup part, not the strap. He held them on tightly and plopped his face in the water. It was magical. I shouted to K, who had looked away for a minute. We high-fived and laughed like schoolchildren (K is a grown man). My goggles are tinted and mirrored, so I couldn't tell if E was opening his eyes underwater or not. But he is starting to get comfortable with the idea of goggles on his face! Next week's goal will be getting the strap on--which I'm told might be a scary situation for E, since he already doesn't like the sensation of things on his face. The progress continues.

It's odd to think that little things such as these are "progress." Perhaps I am just good at romanticizing trivialities. This program is teaching me that there is beauty regardless.