Swimming
SPL and I have been swimming with some friends @ a local swim school for 2 sessions (since January) now (and before that we’ve been swimming pretty consistently once per week at other swim schools since he was 8 months old.) SPL has always liked being in the water — rarely has it caused him to cry or be afraid — but he also wasn’t what I call a "water baby": a baby that giggles and splashes and seems at home in the water from day one.
That said, I wanted to share some of his accomplishments in the last month as he’s made great progress. We have a new teacher this session too and I credit him with a lot of SPL’s progress: Sean tries new things each week (our other teacher did the same exact thing for 12 weeks straight :-(), he’s encouraging and genuinely seems to like SPL.
4 weeks ago, Sean introduced fins to the kids. Of course, SPL was more interested in their color ("green!") than what they could do for his swimming ability. After 4 weeks of practicing with them and me or Sean manually kicking his legs for him, SPL kicked consistently for the entire lesson today on his own! I was so psyched :-).
2 weeks ago, SPL just started putting his own face in the water! and it was all his own doing — and once he realized he could do it, there was no stopping him. That was his sole purpose in swimming class for the rest of the 30 mins — didn’t care about the inner tubes (which he usually likes) or the toys or the songs. It was hilarious.
Sean also introduced SPL to the concept of goggles last week and while SPL wasn’t up for it the first go-round, he did go for it on the 2nd offer (for one of the "submersion swims" (when Sean gently pushes SPL towards me underwater) and seemed to be ok with it.
The other funny story was from today — we got home and I was getting lunch ready in our kitchen and SPL was standing @ the fridge holding on to the handle of our freezer-on-the-bottom. I wasn’t paying much attention and then I realized that he was reenacting "Blast Off" from swimming by putting 1 of his feet up on the fridge and counting down and then backing up across the floor (in the pool, the kids hold on to the side of the pool (parents are holding on to them still of course as this is a "Water Babies" class :-), put their feet up on the side, and there’s a countdown from 3 and then they "blast off" by pushing their feet and then floating on their backs (this is SPL’s *least* favorite part **by far** — the back float part :-).
when I figured out what he was doing, I asked him "are you playing `blast off’?" and he gave me that "you get it/affirmative" smile that I love so much.
What a great kid!