KW - Chapter 1: Sam Swims

Sam didn't have to think long and hard about his favourite part of our week in Key West. Was it the Dolphin Research Centre? The Pirate Soul Museum? The Butterfly Conservatory? Was it spending seven whole days playing in the tiki hut and on the ocean waterfront of his grandparents' beautiful RV lot, the centre of their attention — and his mom at his beck & call, to boot? Well, ya, that was all wonderful of course. He wouldn't have missed any of it. But the trip highlights happened at the Bluewater pool. Sam became a swimmer in Key West.

The pool was our first (and last) holiday stop. On day one, Sam was his usual tentative self. No water baby, this one, he claimed the sweeping stairway into the shallow end as his private playground. He was wet, but he wasn't "in the pool."Cautiously, however, he began to test our assertions that the water wasn't over his head at the bottom stair. Just 3 feet deep along the shallow wall, he found he could easily walk about, at least one hand on the side. By the time we packed up, he was expanding his territory, pinning his mouth shut and wading in to nearly-nose deep. Pretty impressive, considering it used to take a full day on Laddie Lane before he'd think about leaving the stairs. We had to coax him out, promising there'd be a lots of time for swimming.

But I had no idea how much time we'd end up clocking at the pool. We went morning and afternoon for the rest of the week, spending 3-4 hours total there each day. And, at that, Sam was always disappointed when it was time to go. On Day two, we brought the pool noodle down and it became Sam's "boat," taking him around the shallow end for hours and finally (horsey style) around the full pool, with one hand on me (I was cast as Elizabeth Swann to his Will Turner for the duration. Believe me, it's more than a little weird to be called "Miss Swann" and to be the object of hours of dramatic infatuation when you're trying to surreptitiously teach your son to swim...). Sam's sustained effort was exhausting, and he fell asleep in my arms almost every afternoon as we lounged in the tiki hut, restoring his energy for a second swim.

On day five, Sam agreed to waterwings—an unthinkable prospect in the past, treated as though they were inflatable concrete slabs, sure to cause swift watery death. Within minutes, he was repeatedly racing the length of the pool thanks to his "muscles," cheering over and over "Canada wins!" He wasn't simply bobbing about: he was "swimming" like he'd been at it all this time. If I tried to offer a suggestion—cup your hands, kick your legs under the water—he'd shout back "I know!" as though he'd been in lessons and had heard it all before. It was a joy and a relief to watch. A joy because he never stopped smiling and laughing, and a relief because I thought he was going to have to be forced to learn to swim ... when he was 10.

By the end of the week, Grandma and Grandpa had Sam jumping in to them, sending huge waves over their heads and soaking his own as well (this, the boy who can hardly stand having his hair washed: oh the horrors of a trickle of water down the face, the terrors of water in the ears!). Grandma laughs that he'll likely end up as an Olympic swimmer now that he's conquered his fears. While he may not become an international champion, he's a champion to me. I'll not miss the look of abject terror, the fingers clawed into my shoulders as we move about the shallow end locked in an uncomfortable embrace. Unexpectedly, our Key West memories mark the divide between the boy who won't swim and the boy who won't get out of the pool.