AJ had his first swimming lesson of the summer yesterday. The best I can say for it is that it wasn�t as bad as the first lesson of last summer when AJ spent the bulk of the half hour cowering behind a deck chair clutching his blankie.

Yesterday he was very excited to go to the pool. We had had a great time the day before and he was looking forward to playing some more. But he was caught off guard by the fact that the baby pool was not an option � it had been emptied over night and was not yet refilled. Also, no other children showed up, so he was the sole focus of the teacher, me, and K. who came along to watch a lesson before taking him solo this morning. The three of us all making suggestions was probably a little much for anyone to handle. At first AJ flatly refused to come in. Then he conceded to sit on the edge as long as his toes didn�t touch the water. He whined, he moaned, he complained bitterly. Gradually, we coaxed him down a step and eventually got him to put his feet in the water by offering to play catch with him. The teacher and I were both in the water working on him, while K. coached from the sidelines for a while before whipping out a romance novel from her bag and reclining on a lounge chair, catching the occasional stray beach ball.

Eventually AJ began to have a good time. We got him to start kicking by throwing the ball at his feet. Then I moved behind the shallow end rope and we played volleyball. Eventually, he spied a kickboard. We tried to get him to use it, but he refused. He did, however, ask for me to demonstrate it. So we played a game where whenever he kicked his feet in the water, he made me kick too. If he wanted me to kick across the pool, he had to keep kicking too. Amazingly, it worked. By the end of the lesson he was soaking wet and having fun, even if he hadn�t jumped all the way in.

I�m extremely nervous about how things will go this morning when I am not there and am half hoping it will start to rain so I don�t have to worry about it. K. is proving to be a source of great angst in the Harriet household. On the one hand, I have more time to work than I did before. On the other hand, there has been some need to babysit K. Yesterday I made the decision to go to the swim lesson, since I had no idea how AJ was going to react. But because I work at home, K. often asks for help with things she could probably handle herself -- things like putting AJ down for his nap or changing a diaper. Now I admit that changing the diaper of a three-year-old is not a pleasant process. No one wishes he were potty-trained more than I do. But the fact is, all of this time adds up. Between the pool and other things, I spent more than two hours with AJ while we were paying K. to watch him. And she got another bonus in the afternoon when he had a two hour nap.

The other problem is that my husband is finding it even more difficult than I to hand AJ over to K. He complains about everything she does, but expects me to do something about it because he doesn�t like dealing with her directly. I�m not happy about some things she�s doing � namely the excessive TV watching � but I also feel like it�s not fair to expect a babysitter to do exactly what we do with AJ. She needs some leeway to do what works for her. And it seems like she�s been trying to be creative. Yesterday she brought her pet rabbit for AJ to play with, which totally charmed him (and freaked out our cats).

Although all this sounds like complaining about K., it is actually more a problem with me. I�ve been feeling very passive aggressive about the whole thing. I need to lay down the law about the TV, but I�ve been putting it off, hoping she�ll do something different. I�ve managed employees before quite effectively, but somehow it all seems different when the employee is doing something you usually do yourself and in your own home.

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