Swimming Lessons

For the month of March, Tate and I got to go to "Mommy and Me" swimming lessons at a local day camp once a week. The great part was, it was a small class and Tate knew most of the other kids from Church. The first week, leaving for the lesson looked like this

(he's always excited if he gets the keys): Tate was excited to go and have on his swimming trunks. He was excited until we got there that is. As soon as we walked into the locker room the tears started flowing. He was not going to go any farther. The tears were shared by some of the other kids there too. I finally got Tate to walk out to the pool and just look at it. We did that for a few minutes and then he decided he would be able to get in. He clung to my neck pretty much the entire 30 minutes.

But, hey we were in the water at least.

The next week, no tears. Improvement. I asked him if he wanted to go swimming and he said "yep." We walked right out to the pool and got in and the neck-clinging only lasted about half the time this lesson. We practiced kicking and jumping off from the side of the pool. Tate held onto my hands and I just pulled him in (not against his will though:).
The next week, no problem. He found the toys and needed to have all of them. Tate thought it was a fun game to through those sticks and have the teacher get them. He stood up on the side of the pool to jump in, held onto the kick board and even kicked his legs. He also went to the teacher and swam over to me. Okay, not really swam but she pushed him over to me.

The last week was sad because Tate was finally getting comfortable in the pool and that was his last time. I guess we'll have to find more classes to take this summer. But, it was neat to see his progress over the month. The last lesson he had a great time kicking and he even put his face in the water a little bit to blow bubbles. Now, that's something he loves doing in the bath. Tate is quite a good bath time swimmer. Definitely a plus for not working, being able to do these things with my kids. (Thanks to John for holding onto Blake while we were gone).