1st Swim Lessons!

Swim lessons seem to be somewhat of a rite of passage for little kids, especially in the summertime.  Colin had his first experience with this over the last 2 weeks.  The format was a "mommy and me" class, and even though Colin is 18 months, I was able to get him into the lesson for 19-36 month old kids.  He's already very comfortable in the water, and I was hoping we'd go a bit beyond blowing bubbles in the water.  There were 7 other kids in our group, and we met in the main pool at the YMCA Monday through Thursday mornings from 9:15-9:45 for 2 weeks.  On our very first day, my thought at the end of class was, "Thank God this is only a half-hour long!"  Colin liked the experience of being with me in the water at first, but was extra squirmy, probably finding it difficult to understand why he couldn't just swim away to do what he wanted to do!  I think my first mistake was letting him play in the splash park for about 15 minutes before class began, since we got there early on the first day.  He loves having the freedom to roam around here and feel pretty independent.  But in the main pool, Colin didn't have this luxury, so we had a bit of a struggle.  But on the second day, we got right into the main pool and he seemed to be more on board with the activities.  We sang a few songs, practiced kicking and paddling, and yes, blowing bubbles in the pool.  By the third day, he knew what to expect and was more motivated to participate.  He had a lot of fun throwing a ball and kicking and paddling while I supported him on his belly to grab the toy.  So, by the end of our 2nd week, I think he has a pretty good grasp of the basics.  He loves to show people how he can kick and paddle even when he's not in the water.  He's still a little hesitant to jump off the side of the pool, but I'm sure we'll practice that more on our vacation to Hilton Head next week.  The grand finale was actually pretty exciting...on our last day of class, Colin and I got to go down the big waterslide together!  All the kids put on little life vests, and then we went over some ground rules.  There was a lifeguard in the water to catch the babies at the end (requiring me to use my upper body strength to lift him up "Lion King" style), but I knew Colin would have no fear.  And I could see that this was definitely the case as he raced ahead of the group, ready to be the first to go down.  I decided to let him watch a few of the older kids do it first, so he'd know what to expect.  They all seemed to go fairly slow, and we watched as moms pushed the sides of the slide to help them gain some momentum.  But not us.  We zipped all the way down, and ended with a big splash!  The guard still caught Colin at the end, and he loved every minute of it.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get any photos of this, but Marshall came on our 2nd day of class to get a few pics of our lesson to share.  All in all, it was a good first swimming lesson experience, but I think that by next summer, our little fish will be ready to upgrade to a more advanced lesson!