Swimming

My son loves being in the water even though he can't swim. Earlier this week, he would just hang onto the side or bounce on the bottom until he reached the side. Wayward splashes bugged him and he'd hold his nose if he had to go under the water.

He's been taking swim lessons at the community pool for years now. In the community lesson, the teacher wants the kids to wait at the side (and do nothing if you can believe that) while they take one kid at a time to do back floats or blast offs, etc. So, the kids spend quite a bit of time just waiting and getting really cold. Since my son has little body fat, he gets extra cold, even with his wetsuit. So, I decided to add some private lessons. Sure, they're more expensive but he gets 15 minutes with the instructor as opposed to 3-5 minutes in his half-hour community pool class.

So, he's been taking 2 weeks of private swim lessons every day. Yes, he was tentative at first. He pinched his nose if he went under water. He'd cling to the side. It really looked like he was a long way from learning to swim. And yet, yesterday, my son put it all together; he learned to swim. It was glorious to watch. When he purposely dunked his head under water, I leapt to my feet and cried out with joy, "You did it!" Then he kept dunking his head under water without holding his nose. He was so proud of himself that he did it twenty more times. Then his lesson came and the teacher lead him across the pool while he took four strokes by himself, by himself! Mind you, this is the same boy that pinched his nose closed just a couple of days ago.

I felt tears welling up as I watched him testing out his new skills. It was beautiful. And, he's so proud of himself that he keeps dunking, splashing, and telling everyone that he can swim!