First Swim Class

A few weeks ago, the kids, Uncle, and I went for a play date at Hartley's house, where they have a pool.  It was the kids' first time in a swimming pool, I think, and after some initial hesitations, they seemed to enjoy it a lot.  This got me thinking that we really need to get them into a swimming class!  I'd wanted to do it when they were littler, but until age 3, all the classes are of the "mommy & me" variety and you have to bring one adult swimmer per child.  Wrangling three swimming adults a couple of times a week did not sound promising, so we put it off.

But looking ahead to eight weeks of summer to fill with activities and keep the kids busy, I made some last-minute inquiries and found a class at the YMCA with three spots open (no small feat with a class-size of four!).  It started on Monday at 3:20.  The Y is only a few blocks from the kids' pre-school, but I was worried about the logistics of picking them up, getting them in the car, getting them changed into swim gear, and then out to the pool, so I arranged to pick them up early.

Of course, everything went smoothly and we ended up being early!  There's a "family locker room" with direct access to the pool, so we went in there to change.  Daniel became instantly terrified of the little changing stall and insisted on standing in the middle of the locker room to change, which was fine since we were all by ourselves.  Max was excited to go first and Caroline, who had been carrying the little bag of swim togs for me, plunged into the bag to hand him his Batman suit and shirt.  She then plopped herself down on the ground and scooted out of her clothes and by the time I'd turned around, she had her bottoms on and was struggling to pull her swim top down over her head.  With minimal whining, we were all dressed and ready to go at 3:00 and had twenty minutes to wait on the pool deck and watch the rec swimmers.

Every time a swimmer passed by in the lane in front of us, one of the kids would ask, "is that our swimming teacher?"  Every. Time.  It got a little exhausting repeating that I wasn't sure.

At the same time as they scanned the crowd for their teacher, I evaluated the pool.  It's a long lap pool and the "shallow end" seemed to be about 4.5 feet deep looking over at a man standing in that area and estimating the amount of person sticking out above the water.  The only other little kid swimming class I've been to was with a friend's kids at a little kid wading-type pool.  I started to wonder how the class worked - would they wear life vests to stay afloat?

I felt really stupid when class time started and I walked the kids over to the opposite side of the pool and realized that they sit on the edge of the pool with their feet in the water and work with the teacher, Dion, one at a time.  Duh.

Teacher Dion, brilliantly, was wearing a wet suit top (not just a rash guard, definitely thicker), which I thought was a good idea when I saw that he was picking the kids up one by one and carrying them through the water to get used to it.  Even though I held the kids down and snipped their fingernails over the weekend, I'm fairly confident they could still have drawn blood on bare skin with as tightly as they were gripping his shoulders and neck the first time around.

(apologies for the fuzzy pictures - I was across the pool, using my cell phone)

Learning to kick their feet in the water

Learning why it's important not to run on the pool deck - it's slippery!

Because Daniel has been a little bit of a scaredy-cat lately, and because he'd been frightened in the locker room, I was a little concerned that he would freeze up or melt down during the class.  Completely the contrary, he LOVED it.  In fact, he was having such a good time, and I was having so much fun watching him, that I only got one picture, right at the beginning.

Teacher Dion getting Daniel used to the water

 Max, on the other hand, did not seem quite so at home in the water.  He clung to Teacher Dion with a death grip, it seemed, and I could see him mouthing, "I scared. I scared," the first few times he went in the water.

Daniel learning to kick his feet 

Caroline kicking her feet (and splashing her classmate!)

I'm not sure that's a smile on Max's face

After a couple of rounds of just swishing in the water, Dion carried them around while they kicked their feet behind them.  The next step was to hold one arm on a floating barbell while holding onto Dion with the other arm and kicking.  Max didn't get the hang of that, but Caroline did and Daniel actually made it with both hands on the barbell and teacher Dion not holding on at all (I mean, except for the fact that Daniel was balancing on his arm...but his hands were free!)

They practiced putting their faces into a little bucket of water and blowing bubbles and they tried to blow bubbles in the pool too.  The lifeguard's whistle rang out with five minutes to go in class and I realized they had made it through the whole thing without getting their hair wet!  And, right at that moment Dion announced they were going to practice dunking their heads under water.  Of course.

This was the last activity and he made it less scary by walking them out to the middle of the water and tossing them up in the air and catching them a couple of times.  On the last time, he dunked them quickly under and right back up on the count of three.  As scared as they looked pushing their hair out of their faces, when I got around to them the first thing I heard was, "Mommy! I put my face in the water!"

Getting back into street clothes  was a little more hectic than changing out of them had been.  Everyone was cold and wanted to change first, first of all.  They also wanted to get totally dry before they got dressed, which wasn't going to happen.  This is when I started to note all the things I could've planned better.  Their socks really are a little tight, especially trying to get them on wet feet.  Maybe we should bring our "summer shoes" next time (ventilated, rubber-bottomed tennis shoes they can wear without socks).  And, as Caroline suggested, hats might be a good idea when heading out into a foggy San Francisco June afternoon with wet hair!

But not to worry - I'll get to try it all over again tomorrow!