Irony

Irony is, perhaps, my favorite thing to teach.

I have often used stories like "Lamb to the Slaughter" or "Oedipus" to teach students about dramatic, verbal, and situational irony.

Now I have a new story. That of the Swim Lessons.

You see this year, after a 3 year hiatus, both children have been enrolled in swim lessons at the Y. Which, in and of itself, is not ironic.

So I must begin at the beginning...

My children were born at home (warning, the 1st link contains birth pictures but no vaginas). Penelope after an 8 hour labor, and Griffin after only 7. (side note: I rediscovered my old blog).

The births were rather similar- same midwives, same room, same pants, same pig-tail french braids (thanks mom!), same portable horse trough filled with water. That's right, both babies went directly from my womb into lukewarm water before I pulled them out and held them in my arms. Both children swam before they did anything. At all. Ever.

Which is why THIS:

Baffles me. It is Griffin utterly refusing to get in the pool.

A number of people have attempted to get our recalcitrant rhino into the pool:

• His swim instructor, Matt, who has the patience of a saint.
• The lifeguard. All 3 of the ones we've had on duty throughout the week.
• Me. Using a combination of logic (failed), bribes (failed), and passive aggressive threats (triple failed).
• His grandpa.
• His dad.

And this is as far as he's gotten:

Actually, that's not entirely true. I encouraged Matt to just bring him in. This is as far as he's gotten:

Don't let his smirk fool you, he was in tears about 5 seconds later. Big old crocodile tears.

Isn't it ironic? Don't you think? A little too ironic...

What drives me nuts is that all he can talk about the next morning is "when are we going to the pool?" and "is it 3 o'clock yet, can I go swimming now?"

In less-ironic-but-still-semi-frustrating-news Penelope will get in the water but is terrified of it and tenses up the moment she's asked to do anything other than stand.

See, she'll jump in, but only if she's holding her instructors hands (who used to be a Freshmen of mine, FTR), and then only because when she does jump in she never gets anything more than her chest wet because she's over 6 inches taller than the 3.5 foot shallow end.

For children who were BORN IN THE D**M WATER, I just do.not.get.it.