Yesterday I took the boys to swim class again expecting to see the same routine from the previous 3 weeks: gliding through the water guided by the teacher (head submerged, arms and legs outstretched) for as long as they are able to hold their breath (that’s about 6 seconds for Nicholas and 3 seconds for Wesley at this point), some back floatations with kicking of the legs, and collecting floaty toys (kept in laundry baskets) the teacher throws a distance away for the kids to retrieve. But surprisingly, yesterday turned out to be another day of many firsts for the boys.

First, the teachers did their usual startup routine and had each kid dunk their head underwater, then they practiced the glide a few times across the pool. Note: one thing new I learned from this experience is how important it is to have the kids’ arms stretched out/up, hands touching, but arms tucked back behind the ears so that basically the head is sort of stretched out with chin almost touching chest. This concept seemed to be reiterated by every teacher in the pool. It’s a toughy for the little ones, but easier on the older kids Nicholas’ age.

Then, the kids started parading towards the deeper end of the pool: Wesley’s group left their “dugout corner” and choo-choo-trained behind Ms. Kristy to the shallow end. With each child hung off the side of the pool edge, they started inching their way along the edge to the deep end. Once they were all in position, the teacher had each kid get out of the water, jump in, and swim to the edge. One kid was a natural at this and basically did everything on his own. Wesley and Will needed the teacher’s help at first but later jumped in on their own accord as well. They actually seemed ok being submerged underwater for a second or two before paddling up to get to the edge. The teacher also had them do a back-first fall into the water from sitting position and they seemed to have taken a liking to that. Unfortunately, I missed the same deep-end portion of Nicholas’ lesson because I was getting Wesley dressed in the changing room but he informed us later that they did not do the jump from the edge but did a neat backwards flip into the water from the pool edge instead. Well, I guess the deep-end experience must’ve built up a bit of the kids’ confidence because after Wesley and I returned to watch the last 5 minutes of Nicholas’ lesson, he did incredibly well on his glide.

After returning home, we gave fantastic accounts of the lesson to Alex at dinner time, and I could even see the look of regret in his face for having missed out on their new experiences, but lucky for him there is always next week.