A Fulfilling Saturday

This day was very busy, and extremely fulfilling. Everything I did gave me a happy warm feeling deep in the pit of my stomach, a feeling I have more and more these days. I volunteered at the pool this morning at the crack of 9am. I am currently a certified AWSI (assistant water safety instructor) so I'm basically a student-teacher for swimming lessons. I volunteered in the spring and summer (it was a requirement to pass the course) and now I'm just in for practice. I did today and I'll do next week and then a full lesson set in January. The kids are so cute!! Mostly I just help out the ones that need a little extra attention. One little girl wouldn't jump into the water unless I held her hands and when I caught her I had her under the armpits (gently of course) and she had this iron death grip on my hands. It's frightning how strong they are. Another boy wouldn't kick or breath under water. He'd kind of float and not move until he ran out of air and come up. I worked with him mostly in that class. I kept saying "kick your feet, push your tummy up, blow out all your bubbles" and he just wouldn't. But the instructor said he'd improved a lot from previous weeks, so that's good at least. My mom was a lifeguard and swimming teacher too in high school and university, and she once had a kid who just sat on the side and refused to get in the water. She worked with him and it took her 2 summers to get him in up to his neck, and years later he ended up working at a pool, so go figure.

After that, (like an hour after that) my mom and I ended up at the mall to do our shift at Santa's Anonymous. It's the third year we've done it, and we love it!! The same people as previous years had the shifts before and after us and the pick up and delivery guy is the same each time. What Santa's Anonymous is, is a Christmas gift gathering for kids that don't necessarily get Christmas gifts, that's happened for like 32 years here in Victoria. I think a radio station sponsors it. There's about four or five tables in various malls around the city and they each have a Christmas tree with paper bears that elementry school kids coloured and cut out (every year from kindergarten to grade 5 I coloured bears for it) and on the back of each bear is a code name for each kid, whether they are a boy or girl, their age, and what they want. The code names are to keep it anonymous. People come up to the tree, pick a bear with a gift they want to buy, sign it out with the people at the table (there's a number on the bear that matches the same number in the book, so we can find it) and then go and buy the gift and bring it back and hand it in and it goes to the workshop to get sorted and on its way to whoever it's for. It seems like it would be boring to sit behind a table for 2 hours and sign out bears and sign in gifts, but it's actually really fun.

After that we did some shopping, (we had to get Santa's Anonymous gifts for kids too) and this evening was my first carol band gig. In case I haven't mentioned already, carol band is a little band that my school has and every December we do various gigs around town playing easy, fun Christmas tunes. We've practiced a bunch of times at school and more then once I was the only flute player there, and unfortunately that was the case tonight. I'm good, but there's no way I'm powerful to be heard with as many saxophones and trumpets as we have, so the band director played the flute part (over my shoulder!!) on a piccolo trumpet. It did feel special though, to be the only long, shiny, horizontal instrument there. I love the flute!!

It was one of the busiest Saturdays I've had in a long time and one of the best. I love being busy, especially during the holiday season. Tidings of comfort and joy indeed!!