Swim Lessons

Doodah took swim lessons 3 years ago when he was 4. He did great, but was still a bit too spazzy to get tons out of the experience. Chewkie, has had less than zero interest in taking swim lessons ever since - adamant that she does NOT want to put her face in the water. Last summer, I tried convincing her to take lessons with the promise of going Great Wolf Lodge as a carrot. She was still not interested.

This year, she finally agreed and we found a great Swim Camp at a local swimming pool. They put 30+ kids in a pool with 10 teachers for an hour a day for a week and see how much they can learn. I was actually surprised that despite the seeming chaos of it all, it still manages to be a helpful program.

Doodah has been trying to teach himself to swim ever since his swim lessons and was able to pass off a few levels pretty quickly. I was so impressed with his dedication to his teachers and following their instructions.

Chewkie spent the week in the beginning class with the preschoolers, content to play with the babies and the toys. After Wednesday I expressed my frustration that I paid for lessons and she refused to make any progress. Thursday she allowed herself to be dunked by her teachers, which was a great step in the right direction, but still not enough to move on to Level 2: learning to float on her back.

Friday morning we had another talk about being brave and after an initial reticence, she finally got it. She let her teachers teach her how to blow bubbles with her nose and began going under water easy peasy. It was as if a switch had been flipped between total terror and complete comfort. I still can't get over the transformation.

Next week we will try another round of lessons - Chewkie in Level 2 and Doodah in Level 4. Great job my babies!!

Update to add: Chewkie and Doodah never made it out of their respective levels, but the following Saturday we went to the pool together as a family and Chewkie made crazy progress in her swimming abilities and Doodah, instead of honing his skills reveled in being tall enough to go down the big slide and went down at least 20 times.