Swimming Lessons

The American Red Cross offers swimming lessons on base, so we decided to sign up! It's been a challenging week since the lessons are MWF at 2 p.m. Great timing for kids who take naps in the afternoon. Not. But each session is only about a month, so we'll try and stick with it.

Rayna is doing great! Usually she won't jump in the water without having hold of someone's hands, and does her best to keep her head out of the water. She hasn't necessarily been jumping right in, more like being thrown in... the swim instructor isn't kidding around and isn't into babying the kids much. A little unnerving as a mom, but probably good for kids like Rayna who would never otherwise do some of the things she's been doing... and she's having fun and going back for more!

Since Luke has had a couple rounds of swimming lessons, I decided to sign him up for the class right after Rayna's, the level 2 of the preschool levels. Big mistake. To make a long story short, he got really scared jumping in and struggling a little too much in the water since they were expecting him to be able to do more than he could. They were right there and got him right out, just after a few more seconds than he's used to being under water. He was so looking forward to swimming lessons, and now he is NOT. I have many frustrations with this situation that I won't go into... some related to the teaching style I mentioned earlier, but I'll spare you my drama! I'm hoping I can get him back to where he was last summer - as in, enjoying the water. He's now in with Rayna's class, and hopefully he'll get over his new found fear soon! Dan and I took him to the pool today to do a little swimming with Mommy and Daddy, and by the end he was okay again with jumping in the water. Last summer he felt invincible and this summer, he's realized what happens and how it feels when you don't know how to swim! Which is good in some ways, bad in others...