Swim!

We decided this year would be a good time to get it together and sign the kids up for swim lessons.  I mean really, the Bunny is nine now and can't even dog paddle.

Shame on me I guess, but part of the issue has been logistics.  We don't have a pool nearby, and coordinating swim several times a week with multiple age groups/abilities and having a toddler running around the pool just didn't work.  We could seriously have 2-3 classes back to back and then what do I do with the others?  Lam and the Monkey would have been thrilled to sit on the sidelines doing NOTHING during all this time I am sure.

Plus our children have never been friendly with the water, and they are short, which makes them more afraid being that they can't reach the bottom.

Anyway we found a pool that offers 1/2 hour lessons M-F for two solid weeks during the Summer - AND - they will take Lam and the older two boys in the same class.  It's great!

Well, some people aren't so sure it's all that great.

(One of these things is not like the other...)

This was day one.  I sat in the car, sick with mono (that's another post altogether), while my dear Mother-In-Law took the boys in.

Don't let the other two fool you.  It was sheer terror for all of them.  Hannes has a thing for freaking out about every little thing that bothers him.  So much so that it's really difficult to an reason with him.  You sometimes just have to let him whine it out in that big cement filled room.*

*Edit:  The swim coach takes a no-nonsense approach to this and it works wonders.

Lam pretty much thinks he's going to drown all the time.  He obsesses with it the day before, saying that he drowned yesterday and is too tired to swim today.  Then after the lesson he's acts as if nothing has happened.

The Bunny protested a bit in the mornings for the first few days but slowly adjusted as the week went on.  He's the easiest of the bunch.

All of them will most likely be in the same Level I class for the entire summer.  No one likes to get their faces wet, and a couple of them can't figure out how to keep their mouth's shut when underwater.  They all go into the fetal position when back floating, like a bunch of wet, freaked out cats.

If they can fall into the water and "swim" to the side of the pool by the end of the Summer, I will consider these months of lessons successful.

Thankfully after a couple of weeks in they at least look happier.  :-)  Aren't they a cute bunch?