Summer Bliss

This has been an amazing summer. I have to confess that it is the best summer I have had in a few years. I can list all of the reasons, but suffice it to say, most of it comes down to attitude. This has been a year of change and the pattern of stagnation that I felt at the end of 2013 (and the past few years prior) has been broken. Giving credit where credit is due, I have to say that Melanie was an integral part of the process. I feel liberated in ways, uncertain in others, but stronger and happier for it. Many new challenges have presented themselves, and the process of working through them is exciting. This is also the busiest summer we have had in a while. We are constantly on the go, never a moment or a day where we just sit back and relax. School starts in a month and there will be plenty of times that we will be forced to slow down to adapt to Apollo's school schedule, and honestly I am not looking forward to a regimented routine.
  The Airport Club has been our guilty pleasure this summer. I have to say that it is a really nice club. We are there nearly every day. With the warm weather, we are in the pool with the boys 3 to 5 times per week.
   Its hard to not love swimming, but to watch the boys hone their skills has been a real treat for me. Apollo started the season hesitant to put his face in the water, and now he is swimming all over the pool,  doing front and back flips underwater, swimming to the bottom of the pool, and interacting with new friends. Orion, started the season wanting to spend his time in the shallow kid pool, or on the steps of the big pool. In Hawaii, he decided to start holding his breath and go underwater. Once we got back, he gained momentum at the club, and started to go deeper and hold his breath longer and longer. This past week (a month after Hawaii), Orion started to tell me that he couldn't "swim like Apollo," and would do so in an unhappy manner. I kept telling him that his mom and I would teach him how to swim like his brother, but in his normal defiant manner, he would yell, "NO! I don't want you to teach me!"
  As with everything else he does, Orion decided on his own, when he would let go of the hand rail at the pool stairs, and try his hand at swimming. That day was this past Saturday.

  "Dada," he began, "I'm going to swim now! Go under water and watch me!" He took a deep breath, dropped his head below the surface of the water, let go of the hand rail and started kicking his legs. He was smiling from ear to ear as he made his way towards me.
  After a few seconds, I grabbed Orion and pushed him above water, worried that he would run out of breath.
  "Dada! I was swimming!" he snapped at me, "don't take me out of the water!"
For the next two hours, Orion swam his little heart out. We couldn't wait to show his mom when she finished her shift and joined us at the pool. In the mean time, I enjoyed the proud father moments as person after person asked me how old he was and how long he has been taking lessons for.
  "Not yet three," I would answer, "he has never had a lesson. His mom and I are teaching him." Now it was my turn to smile from ear to ear. The truth is that Orion taught himself, all from watching his brother and other kids swimming. In the mean time, I will take a bit of credit for his swimming abilities, until he is old enough to call me out on it...which will probably be sometime in the near future.