Swim Lessons

A few weeks ago, the boys had their first swim lessons.  Aaron is a little water bug, who will willingly stick his face in the water, and doesn't seem to mind water in his eyes.  He's also pretty fearless, so I thought he'd love swim lessons. I was a little less sure about Mudgie, who is scared of the water, hates getting it in his eyes or face, and is just a bit more cautious in general.  So, on the morning of their first lesson, I was prepared for one of them to be unhappy...I was just surprised with who it ended up being.

Mudgie, the great direction follower that he is (when it's not me or Dave giving the directions), fell right in line with the other kids in his class.  He did everything his teacher, "Miss Barbara," asked of him, including putting his face in the water to blow bubbles.  Aaron, on the other hand, had a total meltdown and decided he didn't want to swim with his teacher, "Miss Ashley."  He just kept insisting that he didn't like this Ashley, and he only likes K-K's Ashley.  He didn't go in the water with her the entire lesson.

In an attempt to make the pool seem less scary, and to hopefully avoid a repeat performance, I took the boys to the pool a week later.  I set them up with the noodles, just like they had done during lessons, and had them take turns moving around the pool with me.  It went amazingly well, and in fact, both boys got to the point where I didn't even need to hold onto them, provided they had a noodle.  It was great, and they both had so much fun.  The next week we went back the night before swim lessons, and while Aaron was a little less stable in the water, they both still had a lot of fun and Aaron promised me he'd swim with "Miss Ashley" in the morning.

Swim lesson #2 started off much in the same way the first one did.  Aaron refused to swim with "Miss Ashley," but his class got so much bigger that they brought in another teacher, "Mr. Mike."  With more teachers, they were able to spend a little more one-on-one time with each kid, and so (with a little donut bribery from Daddy) "Mr. Mike" was able to coax Aaron in the pool with him 3 times.  I was VERY happy with that.  Mudgie once again did great, and I'm hoping that next week things go even smoother.