October 11th, 2017

Tired girl. We had our first session of hydrotherapy today. Emma was scared and uncomfortable for most of the session - she’d fallen asleep beforehand and so was woken mid-nap. Not a great start. Secondly, over the chilly winter months we’d stopped taking her to the pool. We’ve been sick, she’s been sick, we stopped making it a priority... fast forward to today and it was like she had no idea that she loves the pool. She was clinging to me and refusing to let go, crying (even with tears!) and screaming.
The Physios were awesome. There were two kids, two mums, and two physios in the session and they encouraged Emma to participate. She reluctantly did some but really didn’t achieve a lot. They praised her when she tried. They cuddled her to make her more comfortable. They let her come back to me when she was really distressed. They helped me to learn what it was we were meant to be doing and why we were doing it so that if we take her on the weekend we can continue the principles. They didn’t yell, scold, or exclude her.
She did things that were really hard for her. She didn’t like having to work to keep her balance on a floating mat. She didn’t like having to pull herself up on the edge of the pool. She really didn’t like lying on her back but she did enjoy kicking. I’m pretty sure that was a tantrum but we went with it.
We’re booked for the term, and we’ll go for the term. It was hard, but just because it was hard doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth it. I can see that every activity we did had value to build Emma’s core strength. Next week I’ll try to keep her awake so that she’s not cranky after half a nap.
She smiled her big smile at least twice, and she crawled so fast over that mat to get to me I’m sure Usain Bolt couldn’t have beaten her! Three times!! No wonder she’s pooped!

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