“I will not let the water touch your face. I will not let the water touch your ears. I will not let the water touch your hair.”
These are the words I have had to whisper to Lucas over and over every summer to try and get him to relax enough to go into water, to trust me in the water. Being told more times than I can count that we just need to dunk him under the water and he’ll “get over it” when they have no idea the kind of pain that would’ve inflicted on him emotionally and physically. I want my kids to trust me with the little things so that they will grow up to trust me with the big things.
This summer he has taken to the water like he never has. He has put his own face in the water, it doesn’t take 20 minutes to convince him to put his feet in, and his hair getting wet hasn’t led to emotionally exhausting meltdowns.
The one place he still hasn’t warmed up to completely is splash pads. He can’t control the water splashing and where it hits him, there is no way to escape your face and hair getting wet. That lack of control is usually too much for him. When we went to this one yesterday he sobbed when he entered the water. I told him it was ok to stop and come sit with me on the bench. He looked at me with tears on his cheeks and said, “no, I can do it.” 😭😭 After about an hour he went right up to this mushroom sprinkler and completely immersed himself under the water. Once he conquered it he was a giant smile the rest of the time and I couldn’t have been more proud of him.
𝗪𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐤𝐢𝐝𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲?
That Playground Life 
So so proud of this little man!!
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