Swim Lessons!

I have not been a good swim lesson mom! In fact, it has been one of those things that made me feel a bit guilty, so I pushed it to the back of my mind! I enrolled Isaac and Bailey in swim lessons several years ago, when Anna Grace was a baby. I dutifully drove across town every afternoon during rush hour traffic for a week. We had a thirty minute lesson, which we shared with our friends Jadon and Jonas. Bailey and Jonas refused to get in the water, so Isaac and Jadon had some personalized attention. While they were in class, I got to chase Olivia and keep Anna Grace happy. I think the experience scarred me, because after that, I shuddered every time I heard the words swim and lesson in the same sentence.

After that I kept putting swim lessons off. My friend Tanya gave Bailey unofficial swim lessons two summers ago when she came to visit. Last winter, the children started asking to take them. It was easy to promise back in January when there was snow on the ground. It started to get warmer, and I kept procrastinating on calling. Taking five children to a pool everyday for a week made me feel tired!

Finally, I called and set up lessons for the last week in July. Our lessons were about 25 minutes away in Cave City. Our teacher was a sweet college student who was great with the kids. We were the only people at the pool, which was nice. There was also a fenced in baby pool, which was perfect for Eli to splash in while the others were in the big pool. We had a private lesson for an hour. Anna Grace got the first fifteen minutes, and she worked on beginning things like putting her face in the water and floating. The others had forty-five minutes. The worked on a couple of different strokes, as well as tredding water and diving.

Overall, the swim lessons were much less painful than I had anticipated. The children learned a lot, and had lots of fun. Maybe I am over my swim lesson phobia!