The reason why I blog

 I remembered why I started this blogging adventure. It was never intended to be a diary of disastrous events for my small but lovely audience to chuckle at. Yet posts like poogate and press the button almost wrote themselves and my children’s naughtiness seems to inspire me to put pen together.

Originally after following and loving my friends Holly’s blog, its a mummy’s life I decided that I too would like a way to record memories of my babies getting big; to remember the important moments that I would loathe to forget and  today presented me with a fantastic memory making blog opportunity.

 Picture the scene;

It’s hot, almost subtropical. Children’s giggles and squeals echo around the old building. Twin boy and girl stand cool, calm, and collected in their bathing suits, the mirror opposite of the nervous, sweating anxious parents lined up against the wall. After ten hard weeks of practice the day had finally arrived.

It was the twin’s first swimming test.

Twin boy was first up to the mark, with the elegance of a hippo he turned and launched into the pool and threw himself wholeheartedly into the task at hand. Before he managed to get more than a few strokes he was swiftly stopped by the lifeguard who explained he had to turn on his listening switch as no one had said go yet. The teacher patiently waited for twin boy to stop excitedly leaping up and down in the water as if he was on a submerged pongo stick and finally when he had his attention he gave the instructions.

 “When I say go, I want you to swim as far as you can without stopping”

Twin boy’s eyes grew like saucers, as the realization hit home that he was expected to swim in the deep end. He glanced over at me nervously and for a moment my heart melted as I gave him the mummy nod to confirm all was okay and he wouldn’t drown.

Tentatively he splashed out, one meter, two meter, with each tiny kick he looked like he was sinking further down but then his head would come up gasping for air and his shorts slid a little further down his backside. He passed the point of being able to stand up at 8 meters and the fear grabbed him but he continued until finally exhausted but overwhelming happy he reached the 10 meter mark and earned himself his first badge. On the side of the pool I flopped to the floor, literally sobbing with pride as I predicted gold Olympic medals in the not so distance future.

Then I had to refocus as the class was not over yet, twin girl had to take her turn. Fear gripped me, what if she didn’t make it, they would be separated in class, and she would be mortified to have not done as well as her ‘little’ brother.

Confidently she lowered herself into the water and took a deep breath; my hands were clenched into fists at my side in nervous anticipation. The teacher repeated the instructions and she set off. Five meters passed, and she was going strong, at eight meters she was looking still good and at ten meters it dawned on me, my little girl was going all the way. Not content to swim half the length of the pool my clever daughter was hurtling her little arms in water twice as deep as her and she was going for the full twenty meter badge. I rose to my feet silently urging her on as her pace slowed slightly as her arms became tired, at seventeen meters the competitive mother in me took over and I yelled encouragement as my baby daughter struggled and fought with all her strength to reach the side and then I yelped with over enthusiastic excitement as she bloody well did it – she got her twenty meter badge.

 Then just to show off my little mermaid did the backstroke back down the pool.

I am not ashamed to say I had tears in my eyes once more!

These may seem like small numbers to us big kids but to someone who is only four ten and twenty meters are massive achievements!

We celebrated with a Wispa and huge cuddles and then he who helped create them demonstrated how proud he was by reading a really long bedtime story to his two fantastic little fishes.

Just to complete the day, baby beautiful  also completed Level one of her Baby Swimming classes today as well, we predict she will be onto breaststroke within a matter of weeks…..

My kids are great, love them to pieces.