You Just Gotta Try

While my son would rather play with train and train tracks or play catch with me or his dad, he likes to watch Dora. We have started recording all episodes as soon as he learned to ask for what he wants to watch, and you can just imagine how many times Dora has filled our TiVo and how many times we've had to delete her and somehow she keeps filling it in no time at all.  To Scott's delight, Dora is also available to watch on Amazon Prime so he can watch it on the computer and on his iPad if we're travelling. Dora is a good babysitter when I need to do chores so for that I don't mind him watching a bit of cartoons. His favourite part of any cartoon is the counting bit. When Jake counts his gold doubloons, when Umizumi counts how many steps they should take to get to the next level and Dora when she counts how many coins she needs to buy an ice cream

cone. Just by watching those three cartoons he has learned to count from 1 to 25 which I think is quite astonishing for a 2-year old. Ok, so he usually misses 16 and 23 but that doesn't make him less awesome!

Yesterday I sat down with him once I was finished doing the washing up. He asked for paper and pencils (which is what he calls his colouring pencils). He handed me a pencil and turned the notebook so that one page was closer to me and the left to him. Then he said 'mummy draw Boots'.  After telling him I can't draw about a dozen times, he gave me another pencil and said 'mummy draw Dora and Boots'. I thought I'd better humour him before he asks me to draw the whole cast of Dora the Explorer. 

I googled Dora and Boots and started copying the picture on the iPad. I have never seen anyone so impressed with my drawing. I mean the pure interest in his face whilst I was drawing and then the satisfaction once the drawing was complete is simply priceless. The only problem now is he keeps asking me to draw! From rocket ships to rainbows to trains!   

This might sound completely pointless to some but to me it's everything. 

I can keep telling myself I can't do something, but my son, so innocently and unknowingly, can prove me wrong. It is because of my son that I finally learned to swim and I'm still learning to be good at it. Just good enough to save him if he gets into trouble with water. Another reason is because he absolutely loves swimming even before he was 2. He just loves the water and I'm so excited that next year he will be old enough to take up swimming lessons. We live very close to the canal and reservoirs so I really want him to be good at swimming. When I was 10 I drowned in a murky river. Fortunately someone pulled me out just in time.  My son might not be so lucky that's why I am arming him with a life saving skill that will not only save his own but perhaps another's, too.