Swimming lessons for our Brown Eyed Girl was a necessity. Okay, I take that back. Swimming lessons are a life skill, a very important life skill to be alive should you fall in a body of water. But the reason why we only signed her up and not Mr Blue Eyes is because my Brown Eyed Girl is fearless. Nothing scares her. She has always been adventurous and a daredevil and brave. After swimming three times a week last summer, she lacked the skills to swim but not the guts to just jump right in. In part, because she just expected someone to be there to tow her around when she surfaced and bring her safely ashore. A necessity!
While our Mr Blue Eyes is more reserved. He is content with just sitting on the edge of the pool, at the shallow end, by the stairs, only dangling his toes in the water. Cool as a cucumber on the outside but within, fearful of the power of water.
Still he has been begging for swimming lessons.
Knowing they will be spending most of the summer in the pool again, I decided it was a good idea to get Mr Blue Eyes a few lessons under his belt before this summer. If nothing else to teach him the survival float technique should he ever fall into the pool.
His first lesson was yesterday. The best way that I can describe this experience for my little man was like riding a roller coaster. Literally.
He was so excited this week. Yesterday he told every person he came in contact with that he was going to "simmin yessons today!"
He made sure to tell every child and parent waiting at the swim school that today... he was swimming!
The lifeguard called his name and he enthusiastically went and lined up for his class. He flashed me a smile and one quick thumbs up as he entered the pool area for his old mom. I was beaming at how big my little boy is getting!
clunk clunk... climbing that first big hill of the roller coaster...
almost to the top and you are smiling at your friend sitting next to you, excitement overflowing...
the buildings and people look so small below...
and you tear down the tracks!
to the left...
to the right...
Once the teacher put him back on the platform and took the other classmate out for a twirl around the pool... panic set in and he started screaming, "Mommy! Daddy! All Done! Aaaalllll DONE!"
Huston, I think we have a problem!
So the lifeguard had to come and keep him distracted.
The poor kid kept scooting back towards the wall instead of balancing and planting his feet on the floor of the bench. With his little chicken legs stuck out straight he kept throwing his center of gravity off and kept almost tipping over. This only promoted more screams.
Ten minutes in and he was a disaster.
Every time the teacher returned to give him a turn he would shake his head NO frantically. But every time with little effort she coaxed him to her. Holding on for dear life, death grip and white knuckles, a smile would creep onto his face as he blew bubbles and kicked his little toes.
A few seconds after returning to the platform and he was screaming for me and crying again.
My heart strings were tearing. My poor little man. I tried smiling really, REALLY big while giving him lots of waves and big thumbs up.
Hang in there dude!
His new buddies tried to talk about his super cool Cars swim trunks while squirting water out of their little toys.
But that only lasted about 1.6 seconds.
And then screams of terror returned.
So much for swimming lessons...
The lifeguards and his teacher assured me this was normal with the little Guppies. I have my doubts.
We went to the locker room and as we were dressing I told him how proud I was of him and how great he did today. I asked him if he had fun... (cringing and waiting for the "I never want to go swimming ever again!")
That little blue eyed boy looked up with a big grin and said, "Yup. I go simming next week too!"
?!?!?!?!?!
"You want to go swimming next week again? Another lesson? You like swimming?"
"Yup! Next week. More simming!"
You got it buddy!
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