Caden

Has a horribly huge fear of water. If it entails him going under. He loves the bath, he loves to 'swim' as long as he can stand. He loves to do monkey walks and throw balls and jump in the water safely.

He does not like going under. This has been an ongoing issue for 2 years now. He got sick in the pool (darn it Malloy's!) on Monday at his lesson. He is so panicked about going under. That ended his lesson. He knows today is Wednesday and has cried the whole way home after school saying he doesn't want to go. He also is saying his belly hurts really bad. 

I tried to explain to him that he needs to meet fear in the face and conquer it. He only cries harder. He is now angry with me, because he wants to stay home and I won't let him. I think I would rather him be angry with me and hopefully that will take away some fear for him. 

The never ending question: 

How far do we push them to conquer this fear, to do better? When is enough, enough?

I try explaining to him that he said all last summer that he wanted to swim like his cousins, and this is the way to learn. To trust Joel. Mommy wouldn't let you be with someone she didn't trust, right?

I took him out of swim two years ago, and didn't do anything last year. 

This year was proving to be better, but he had another 'go under and couldn't get back up' episode a couple of weeks ago. Joel, his teacher, told me that Caden is going to hate it and won't want to come. Boy did he nail that one.

My heart can only take so much of his pain, pleads, and crying. I'm at a lose. I don't know how to make it better for him. I've tried bribing him too. He doesn't want to do anything, have anything, go anywhere, except if it gets him out of swim lessons. He wants me in the pool, but the school doesn't want me in it. Plus I think he will just cling to me anyway, so that's not the solution. Right now I wish we had a pool so I could work with him on the off days. 

On another note, I will be single mom looks like most of June.

Mike HAS to? go Grand Cayman's the first week of June for his now company representing them. The funny thing is, it's his old company's Award Conference ~ that they would never let him and his colleague's go on (and they did all the hard traveling, wining, and dining work, plus held ALL the responsibility if the rep did anything illegal, basically losing their license therefore never being able to work in the market ever again and the pay was insulting! okay done with that, in the past LOL) So he took the boys yesterday to go get a passport. None of us have one! And if we ever want to go to Mexico, so close, we all need one now, as you all may know. I have ALWAYS wanted to go there. And have always said that we should have gone when we lived in Atlanta.

Then a day later from when he gets home he has to go to another conference in Las Vegas? Seriously, can I work for this company? Oh and two weeks before he leaves for Grand Cayman's, he has to go to Denver as well for a Regional Meeting. 

And my babysitter is leaving us, well she's having a baby ;-)

So I'm looking for help. I thought I had some but she keeps changing her story on when she can help me and I don't have her starting until June. So I don't think that's going to work out.

My back is still spasming. I can't stand for more than a few minutes without it freaking out. I have all range of motion though which is very good. I can't take anything but tylenol. 

It's 5 o'clock some where right? I cancelled yet another session for training today. When I don't work out, I don't eat well and when I don't eat well or work out I get depressed. So there you have it, I'm having a depressing week and it's been very hard to put a smile on my face. Between the pain in my back and the bad food I'm eating, I have a dark cloud.