It's Gobbles Time!: Little Fish

I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that these kids were doing swim lessons. Those high-intensity crazy courses that suck the life out of you every night for two weeks straight. Gobbles had taken them last year, but the Lobster was in for a treat. We may have rounded up on her age to get her in, but having spent so much time at the pool this summer, we're glad we did. I mean, look how happy she was to get started! Seriously though, after making the decision to join the pool knowing that it would be just me most of the time with the kids, we knew we wanted the kids to be able to "save themselves" should they end up in unfamiliar waters.

Anyway, Gobbles thrived at the second level, where they taught basic strokes and propelling through the water. We didn't really notice the real fruits of his work until our time at the pool, where he is now diving for sinking toys, jumping of the diving board, and hitting the slide with no problem getting across the water to the wall. He's even played a round or two of sharks and minnows with the big kids in the deep end, and just recently started actually diving into the water.

I think he's also been aided by the true-to-prescription goggles that we coughed up an exuberant amount of money for but are very worth it since he can actually see now in the pool. He's still not the most graceful freestyle swimmer, but every time we're in the pool he seems to get more strokes and breaths in before a break is needed. All that matters to me is that he can tread water like a champ!

Now the Lobster, oh I think we failed her. Because the swim lessons used to be for any age, we figured what the heck let's try. She did great, floating herself to the top and passing the beginner test which included "swimming" on her back out to the rope and back unassisted. The only problem was the jumping in. Yea, that's tough. Every.single.time it was her turn to jump in, someone had to throw her. I think there was one time she tried on her own and ended up bumping her butt on the wall. This might have traumatized her a bit because now when we swim she demands that I hold her hands when she jumps in. She's currently using a puddle jumper at the pool (against the swim instructor's warnings that all will be unlearned) about half the time, and with that she will jump in on her own. She has been improving though, because she will keep jumping in despite me letting go of her hands every time (like charlie brown with the football). On those times I do let go, she pops right back up to the surface as if the lessons were yesterday.

Each day the Lobster makes me promise that she'll never need swim lessons again, I told her if she can swim across the pool at the end of the summer without her puddle jumper then we have a deal. So far, she's gone about 4 feet. We still have a month, we'll get there :)