Swimming Lessons

Frost and Wren are doing swimming lessons this week. It is Wren's first swimming lesson attempt and it has been tempestuous. Honestly, I wouldn't have signed him up at all but for the fact that Frost likes swimming and learns a lot each year. I thought it would be easy to have both boys doing swimming while I read my book.

Of course, its not working out at all as I expected. Instead, I lie on the wet cement by the pool, cajoling and reassuring Wren that his draconian preschool swimming teacher is not going to "take me to the deep" or "make him into an upside starfish" on Day 1 or "get water ups 'is nose!" [Day 3]

She has done all these things. She's really clueless. The worst of it is that she acts as if its his obligation to do the various exercises and routines she has on her little waterproof board and does not invoke any joy in him. None. Its all:

COME HERE AND KICK AT THE WALL

NOW COME AND DIP YOUR EAR IN

NOW HUM AND PUT YOUR FACE IN

NOW COME INTO THE DEEP AND BE A MONKEY ON THE WALL

Seriously, Josh could program an iPod to be a better swim instructor. We could bob it around in one of those waterproof Pelican cases Scott recommended for my camera. I bet Wren would warm to it.

Its going well here: "Put your ear in like this"

"Now I am going to pretend I am a shark and drag you around the pool a bit. You just hang there in my jaws."

Despite the stress of the bad experiences, I insisted Wren stay in the pool if I stayed with him. Thus I stay near and throw the funny toy into the pool for him to catch. He loves that. His whole face lights up. The assistant swim coach is also great (he is in the lower right corner, above) and he is very kind to Wren and lets him wander around in his comfort zone and even gets him to do challenging things in a nice way). Today, Wren did a lot better - stayed in for the whole lesson and even laughed a few times.

He doesn't like the game "Mr Shark, What time is it Mr Shark?" because when the kid shouts "DINNER TIME" he runs away through the water with a look of terror.

I hope he feels better tomorrow.

Frost is doing great breaststroke, tolerable crawl and dives and jumps into the pool with ease. He is doing some semi-prone back floats and can do backstroke legs with almost-backstroke arms. I am very happy with his water safety and confidence.