Swimming Lessons

 So now that we're back in Kansas it's back to life as usual. We started swimming lessons at the city pool this week. Surprisingly one of Jeffrey's primary friends is in the same class with his siblings so he had a friend right away.


He has been asking if he can swim for months. I told him that we would start when lessons did and tried to get him ready for the class (amidst all his fears and worries) as well as I could. The first day of class came and he was excited to get up and get ready for class but when they went down to the pool to asses the kids, he froze. He wouldn't go and wanted to just go home, I tried to explain that this was the time to swim and that he couldn't go in after class time. We asked if we could just walk down and feel the pool together (no grownups allowed in the water) and he felt it twice and then told me that he already knew how to swim. He eventually decided to sit on the side of the pool and watch but got out frequently to make sure I wasn't leaving. He finally wanted to get in when the class ended, exactly what I had been expecting to happen.

Jeffrey works well with incentives, so with the promise of a donut if he would get in the water and participate in class, we went back yesterday. He was a little iffy about getting into the water at first, but once he got in he was just fine. He's with the level 1 swimmers so all they do is bob and kick but he was totally into it!Today was day 3 of class and he was able to plug his nose and go all the way under the water three times. (Yep I'm still that mom who's proud of her kid's sneezes!) It was a huge step for him since he wouldn't let the water touch his ears a few weeks ago. We're a long way from a medal at the Olympics but for this kiddo with all his anxieties, it was a HUGE accomplishment.