It took exactly one hour…

All summer long, a weird spell has fallen over my five-year-old. It’s been hard to explain. My little red-headed fire-cracker girl who throws her hands up and screams “GO FASTER, DADDY” when my husband burns out in his Mustang, suddenly was frozen in fear unable to progress–seeming much younger than her friends.

My oldest is the cautious one. The pessimist. The one who expects to fail or get hurt. The one who says it isn’t worth it to try. (This bothers me mostly because I have the same voices in my head most days that I am learning to ignore.)

But, there I found myself, looking at my daring daughter in her arm floaties, unwilling to swim without them. No amount of peer pressure or jaunts from the neighborhood girls could get her to swim without them. She was not interested. Period.

Oh, well, I thought. We’ll be going to Florida, getting a pool, and going to a great water park this summer. She’ll get over it.

Months went by and she wasn’t budging. She didn’t much like the beach in Florida. Our water park trip was basically a big FAIL when she would only ride on the kiddy slides. Even when I pointed out to her that all the kids she was sliding with were still in diapers.

No budge.

We came home to a new pool that we swam in every day of the month of August. I let her have a little back-to-school pool party for all her kindergartener friends.

No budge.

And, then something happened a few weeks ago.

She put her face in on her own.

Days later, she started going under the water with her floaties on, but fully letting her body and head submerse.

Another budge earlier this week when she tried jumping in the hot tub. Yes, floaties were included, but she went all the way under and jumped without anyone catching her.

Part of my biggest fear this summer with getting our new pool was that she’s not swimming well. We waited years to build the pool because we wanted our kids to be big enough to reduce the risks with having a pool in the backyard.

Summer came and went, and then there was back to school and her first year of kindergarten. I watched how proud she felt riding her bike along with the bigger kids and walking into school with her older brother without her mom following .

“I can do it Mom. You don’t need to show me where to go.”

And, there she went, her rolling backpack pulled behind her, tiny legs carrying her to the “big kid” school she’s been dreaming of going to for several years now. She still looks every bit that of a four-year-old, being as petite as she is. But, when I look close in her eyes, I see she has already changed after only two weeks of elementary school.

“Mom, I think I want you to call the lady you told me about, to give me lessons. I want to swim now,” my daughter announced, rather matter-of-factly last week.

I made the call that day. Today was her first lesson.

As we pulled up to the instructor’s house, she looked at me confidently and said, “Maybe I will be a swim teacher when I grow up, Mom. I am going to be a good swimmer.”

It took exactly one hour…and my daughter was swimming across the pool, able to pause and lift up for air, then put her head back down and finish her stretch. A child who refused to take off her arm floaties all summer long was now taking charge and amazing even her instructor.

In just one hour, I realized that this is the beginning of the end of my baby girl. She’ll change so much this year and become even more independent. Arm floaties will never hold her back again.

And, for the first time, I welled up a little with tears and realized…maybe it’s time for this mom to come up for air and allow myself to take that all in, finally.