Courage

Last week Arianna had Girl Scout camp. It was a day camp Monday and Tuesday and then we dropped her off Wednesday and picked her up Friday.
We took some time those 2 evenings she was gone to spend some quality time with Nola Sue. It was really fun to hang out with just her away from the shadow of big sis. We swam Thursday night and her Aunt and Uncle came over for a bit. After they left, Ryan went in the house to change and get dinner. Nola Sue has had a funny summer with swimming. The day after we filled the pool she was too terrified to swim and it took a lot of coaxing. She forgot she loves to swim! She took swimming lessons this summer and learned a lot, but still refuses to swim without her floatie. I have begged her to try and use the little board and she has refused. I gave up a while ago.
Once it was just her and me in the pool she told me to take off her floaties. I assumed she wanted to go in and she said she wanted to use the board. I was shocked. She had this wild and crazy look in her eyes like something big was going to happen. The kind of look you usually see in people after a few glasses of 'liquid courage'
Shen ended up swimming across the pool unassisted several times as well as using the board and barking at me to let go. She also loved throwing stuff in and diving to the bottom to get them. I am so proud of her! I can't believe she did it. I made Ryan take a video since I was in such shock and I took this picture from the video to share. Not a good photo really, but wanted to remember.
That night I laid in bed and couldn't sleep. What if all of us could dig really deep and find our courage? The courage to do stuff that scares the heck out of us. What amazing rewards would we reap. I am going to try in my own life to be more like Nola Sue was that evening. Lets all throw off the floaties and do something scary! Please let me know if you try this and what happens!