Swimming

Brock and I have been taking swimming lessons for a few months now. He loves it, and has truly progressed. He had anwesome weekend at grandma and grandpa's bus house where he got to show daddy his moves jumping off the island and swimming to him (pics to follow one day). In fact, he has  graduated to Goldfish Mini Jr... which essentially means "no-mom-in-pool". Sigh. Would this be the end of his love of swimming? Should I keep him a big fish in a small pool? Or gumption up and swim with the sharks? SHARKS is IS!

This is day one. He HATES it! Oh indeed, no surprises there. I peeled him off of me like a neoprene wet suit, held out our adorable kicking maniac to our brave professional, and high tailed it out of sight. See his finger nibbling? This coping mechanism was maintained throughout the entire 30 minute lesson. I am telling myself that the other calm children have been doing this for many months.

I'm not sure whose idea the ribbon was, I am guessing Brock's. I did see him gesticulating madly in the general ribbon direction from my incognito view. Fine. Ribbon obtained. 30 long minutes later I was invited back into the pool to obtain my traumatized goo. They give you a little summary after class of how it went. I hear the teacher say to the other mom "Jared did great for his first time". First time? I was sure that cool cucumber had been best-ies with coach Tyler for weeks. Sigh. Brock's report was simply, "right now we are just working on building trust". Hilarious.

Ok, so this was today. You have to look closely. This was his fourth class alone. I got his class changed to be with coach Paulina who he hit it off with famously last week, and actually was able to get over his nerves enough to show off his truly exceptional swimming skills (underwater, swimming unassisted for three feet, floating on his back unassisted, and getting out of the pool on his own).  Naturally they told me that Paulina had a sub today. Sigh. But darn it, the little guy pulled through! There was some anxiety before we went in coupled with the usual distraction tactics (I'm hungry! Go potty! Have to poop! I'm tired!), but then once we go into the pool area, he was rather un-panicked. I drop him on his turtle when Steven the sub comes and commence lurking. Anyhow, he did it! He told me how calm he was and how he liked Steven and how he kicked and pulled. Awesome. Whew. I even relaxed enough to check out the Anthropologie sale on my phone. And a good day was had by all.