We Must Go Swimming More Often

A was dropped off at Nonna's for the weekend this morning, where she will get time with her grandparents, and also get the chance to see her little half siblings. She doesn't see them very often (the littl'uns), and always looks forward to it. She really enjoys the big sister role, and is very good at it too - very patient and caring.

So I have the weekend to myself. I suppose I really should work, but I feel that the last couple of weeks have been so hectic workwise that I might just relax and enjoy my own company for a while.

We managed to get to the swimming pool on Friday. I am in a perpetual state of guilt when it comes to swimming. A can sort of swim, but is not confident out of her depth, and I really wish she was. I have tried in the past - sent her to lessons when she was five, but by the third lesson she sat sobbing in the changing room because she hated it so much and I felt like a heartless mummy-monster, so they stopped. A couple of years later I organised one-to-one lessons, but she had a different instructor each week, which was a bit rubbish, and when I watched one of them spend most of A's 'lesson' chatting up young girls it really pissed me off. So that didn't last long either. A has never wanted to attend lessons (I think her first experience put her off), although she does enjoy going to the pool.
So we now visit the pool sporadically, with me repeatedly saying "we must go swimming more often" but failing to actually make it happen. Thing is, I know if we went more often she would improve, I'm sure it wouldn't take much. But the truth is, I just don't like going swimming. The hassle of getting there, the indignity of wearing a swimming costume, the wet hair, the stinking changing rooms, and possibly on some level the memory of being called out of the pool over the PA system to a phonecall telling me my dad had died, then having to drag a protesting 4-year-old A out to get dressed and go up to the hospital and meet my Mum. All of that. Or maybe I'm just lazy. As a 'good' parent I'm sure I should put all that aside and put my child first.
Anyway, we must go swimming more often...