Bye-bye Naan-naan?

The swimming teacher threw a wrench in little B's gears: parents were asked kindly to sit on a bench while their toddlers entered the pool with the instructor. "Sure," agreed Simone. "But you might want to let him keep that purple frog."

The instructor nodded sagely. "There are some battles I do not want to fight," she said.

The entire group did quite well for about two minutes. Then little B noticed that Simone was... not next to him.

"Naan? Naan-naan?" he asked, his voice rising with increasing tension. When he spotted Simone on the bench, he sighed with relief, frowned and pointed to the water, indicating that Simone had fooled around enough. Time to get into the pool. When she demured, little B became increasingly insistent, disrupting his classmates. Before anarchy set in and the rest of the children began demanding that their significant slaves join them in the water, Simone entered the kiddie pool.

The remainder of the lesson proceeded as usual, which is to say that little B participated somewhat and always on the outskirts of the group. Then came jumping into the pool time, followed by, the instructor promised, a turn on the yellow slide. Little B climbed out of the pool and headed toward the line his classmates had formed, in anticipation of jumping into the teacher's arms. Then he swiftly by-passed the line, making a beeline for the slide.

"Uh, no!" said the instructor, grabbing little B's arm and pulling him back into the pool.

Sigh.

That was the end of that. Temper tantrum number ... Simone has lost count of the number of tantrums that have occurred but you get the idea. The tantrum lasted twenty minutes, well past the end of the lesson. Simone wrapped herself in a towel and waited for the emergence of better temper as other parents filed past, avoiding her gaze and the instructor gave the other parents instructions for the following week, instructions she dutifully did not give to Simone. They involved the parents not even putting on their swim suits.

Sigh.

Simone did get a lovely hug and kiss, courtesy of little B, when all was sunny again in little B land. Perhaps, in the end, that is all the thanks we need...