I've been taking Enoch swimming by himself once or twice a week now all summer (Michael, too, but not as much). I think the one on one time is great for me and him. I love the chance to devote all my energy to him and showing him how special I think he is. I think it makes a big difference in how happy he is. Lately Enoch has been a bit depressed, and I think it's because we don't have as much time to spend with him with the new baby and my busy rotation schedule, plus our stress probably rubs off on him. Today he seemed especially quite and withdrawn. After swimming with me, however, he was an entirely different and lovely boy.
He has gotten so much better at swimming. He was so timid and afraid of doing anything new, but now he will jump into the water, float on his back, kick on his back, push off the wall towards me, jump from me to the wall. He was too afraid to do any of those things 3 months ago.
There is a Chinese family that often swims when we do. I've never spoken to them, but today I told Enoch to monkey on the wall over to the girl and say 你好。 He did, although he was shy and said it too quiet too far away. Nonetheless, eventually we started talking with the mom and her 5 year old niece. Enoch was too shy to say much, but eventually he started saying, "look at me!" and he would hold on to the wall and go all the way under water. He had never done that before! I always would try to get him to do it, but he never would.
Such a showoff!
I was proud of him. Mom was delighted to hear Enoch talk about this when we got home. As we were leaving, Enoch seemed to build up the courage to go and mumble out some words to the girl, "我叫杰凯，你叫什么？"
I think he was very excited to meet people that speak Chinese. It's like he realized that we're not the only people in this country who speak Chinese, and maybe Mom and Dad aren't so silly for making me speak Chinese after all.
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