Swim lessons

Yesterday was Luke and Evelyn's first swim lesson of the season. These lessons are very important to us because we want our kids to be able to swim to the side of the pool if they should ever fall in. Yeah, that's important! We all headed to the pool this afternoon with 2 excited kids. Eliza and I went for moral support. JD went because he had to get in with Evelyn.

Well, true to their nature Evelyn loved it. She had her daddy all to herself for an hour and got to play in the pool. Who wouldn't love that? They did lots of songs and rhymes to get the kids comfortable in the water. Fun!

Luke on the other hand didn't have such a great time. When we're swimming at home he wears water wings (see above pic). At swim lessons they can't wear them. Well, Luke thinking he had them on took a leap off the bottom step and went straight under. Scared him to death. Of course he was fine and they were right there to pull him up to his feet, but that didn't make a difference to him. He cried. And cried. And cried. They had him continue to do everything that the class was doing. All the while he wore a pathetic sad face and bawled. Poor boy. I've never wanted to jump over a fence and rescue him so badly in my life. It's a good thing that the gate won't let the parents through because I would have gone to him in an instant. Oh, and I must mention that he had goggles on so his ears were sticking out. That just added to the patheticness (did I make that word up?).

When lessons were FINALLY over and we could have our babies back I hugged him so hard. We talked about the lesson and what had happened. He just wanted his dog-dog and to go home, so we left. We talked about things when we got home. JD and I took turns taking him in our pool and doing the same things with him that he did at swim lessons. We told him about the rewards he would get if he tried it again and didn't cry. We prayed and prayed for him to make it through the next lesson.

Fast forward to today. He was a little anxious about going, but he went. When we were walking in the pool area one of his teachers greeted him by name and said how excited she was that he was there. That meant the world to him! He got it with a proud look on his face. I could just tell that he was determined to conquer this. And he did! No tears today. No sad puppy faces. Only smiles and splashes came from him. They even had him go off the diving board and he did it with joy. I'm SO proud of my little guy. It's so amazing to see him overcome a struggle and come away victorious. Yes, today was a great day!