We have a fish!

 

 

We officially have an almost swimmer in our house!  After two sessions, two weeks long each, 4 days a week (and loving every second of it), along with beautiful *finally* summer weather, Alex is dog paddling his way around the pool for a few feet here and a few feet there. 

 

He’s been gaining on the freckle department since last summer, and as you can see – he will take after us soon enough.  Freckles everywhere!

 

 

 

 

One of his favorite things to do now is to have something on the bottom of the pool and dive down (like a scuba diver) and get it.  At first, it was quite challenging to figure out how to get down.  He was holding his breath and couldn’t quite figure it out.  The the help of wonderful Ms. Molly, swim teacher extraordinaire, he figured it all out, breath out a bit, dive down, swim down and kick, he could get the object.  That’s it – he was addicted. 

 

 

Sitting on the sidelines for 4 weeks, it was really interesting to watch.  I learned that learning to swim is really just repetition, learning confidence in the water, and finally learning the skill of swimming.  It’s all about confidence in themselves and their environment (water).  One of the last things Alex did was to take a “noodle” and jump in the pool and swim to Molly.  This was a blast!  He had the confidence, he knew what to do, he’s just needing a boost (from the noodle’s buoyancy) to be able to swim longer than a few feet.  He jumps off the side of the pool, and swims about 5-10 feet.  Have a blast the whole time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would say that during these 4 weeks of swimming, I have had the cleanest Alex EVER!  He has not been liking baths, nor showers.  He really gets quite grungy sometimes.  One time when Grandma Sandy came up recently, I asked her to give him a bath – it had been well over 3 weeks!  But, with this new found confidence in the water, and having to take a shower afterwards to rinse of the chlorine, he has totally been OK with taking a shower.  One day, I wrapped up his towel around his waste so that when he sat in the car, his seat wouldn’t get too wet from his swim shorts.  He loved it – and I got the picture below!