Just us- SBI adoption story (Just me and him book 2)

Chapter 26: swimming lessons

Kristin's POV:

I handed Tommy his cup of fizzy water and his vitamins. "There you go bud." He took them the way we'd been teaching him to and then pointed at the piece of paper. "Yep, that's him, your new swimming teacher remember. And this afternoon, you're going to go meet him and do some swimming."

"Yea."

"Mhm, and these are the pictures of the swimming pool." He studied the pictures we'd been sent by Jimmy Solidarity. He was a swimming teacher who did mostly swimming with disabled people. He did do it in groups, but we'd decided to give Tommy that time to himself. He needed things that were his and his only. Jimmy seemed like a lovely guy who Phil had found online after the first lady he'd been talking to said she wasn't going to be able to fit him in for a few months. He had an indoor, heated swimming pool purpose built for his job.

It seemed very well set up. When we'd booked in our first session, he sent over an information pack. It contained pictures and information about him, and then a tonne of pictures of the swimming pool and changing area. We weren't sure whether seeing all the information before he went and did something was helpful for Tommy but we'd agreed with Eret to continue doing it as long as it didn't cause any harm. Speaking of, Phil was on the phone with Eret now. The weekly phone calls had made a massive difference for our understanding of Tommy, Techno and Tubbo. Eret was qualified to help with all of the conditions and needs and mostly just reassured me and Phil we were doing our best and our best was more than good enough.

Monday evenings were hectic. Techno's driving test was not long off, so his fortnightly driving lessons would be stopping soon. But Kelly had gymnastics on a Monday and Mumbo had three hours of music lessons at our house. We were now in the routine of Tubbo going first, feeding Tommy, Kelly and Kristin during that time, then Tommy having his lesson, then Wilbur having his whilst I cooked/ reheated dinner for everyone else. Poor Mumbo asked for a cup of coffee and a 10 minute break between each of the boys to get things sorted and that was it.

But now, Tuesdays would involve trying to get all the boys back home in time from school, then speeding off to swimming with Tommy. I'd get home from work, start making dinner. Then when Phil and Tommy got back, we'd eat dinner as a family. And the rest of the evening would continue as 'normal'. Our weeks were only going to get busier, but Phil and I were loving it.

I got a food bag out and placed Tommy's goggles into it. We had his towel and change of clothes in a drawstring bag they'd got in Sports direct. He was wearing his swimming shorts and UV shirt so he was ready to go. He was still studying the pictures so I just checked Kelly was okay. It was a really nice day out today and we'd spent most of the day in the garden. She was jumping on the trampoline and quickly confirmed she was really enjoying herself and there was nothing to worry about.

"MA!"

"I'm coming bud, what's up?"

"When am I going swimming?"

"Nice talking," I praised. 'Nice talking' was our new way of saying well done for using his iPad to talk to us, "Phil is going to take you at 4:10. It takes you 20 minutes to get there. You've got 10 minutes to get changed, a whole hour of swimming, then 10 minutes to get changed, then 20 minutes drive home, then we'll have dinner. Okay?" I was pointing at each step on the piece of paper. We'd created a timeline of sorts to show how the swimming lesson routine which he'd now be doing every Tuesday for as long as he wanted to.

He nodded and tapped each part of the paper over and over in the order it was going to happen. He was content and entertaining himself so I left him to it and checked my phone for the billionth time. We'd let our three eldest boys go out into town by themselves and despite the fact we'd told them we trusted them and so on, Phil and I were petrified of something going wrong. Both of us had been stress-checking our phones since he dropped them off earlier.