Swimming Lessons!

This one's a book, guys. Complete with terrifying drama, triumph and boatloads of excitement! So settle in.  :)

Today the kids had their first swimming lesson! They're signed up for a series of 5 half hour lessons over the next few weeks at the local aquatic center, and a close friend of ours signed her son up for the same class so they have a friend along as well. :)

I've been wanting to get them involved in extra-curricular activities for a while now but they had such a hard time settling on what they wanted to do! Caiden wants to do martial arts - Momma wants him to wait until he's older for that one. Rebecca wants to do ballet - but it's a bit of an intense schedule and a higher price tag. Caiden wanted to join the little league t-ball team - but you have to be entering Kindergarten in the fall, so he has one more year to go. Then Rebecca thought about swimming and they both jumped at the idea. 

We settled on the "semi-private" lessons which are designed for kids who have less experience in the pool. The ratio is about 1 instructor to every two or three children and it worked out wonderfully. At first they separated the kids out by age, putting Caiden and Liam in the shallow end on the stairs with about 4 or 5 other children and leaving Rebecca on the edge with some *much* larger children who all looked like they knew what they were about. It only took a few vigorous kicking splashes to the face (accidental, of course though!) before my poor girl started sobbing, climbed herself out of the pool and announced that she would never learn to swim because she was SURE she would drown first. 

Well, the overall instructor (who stays out of the pool watching over all the groups and seemed to be taking notes on ability level) talked her down pretty swiftly and moved her closer to the boys at the stairs with another child who seemed kind of on the scared side and a dedicated instructor for just the two of them. It took her new instructor all of about a minute and a half to have Rebecca grinning ear to ear, jumping up and down in the water, and practicing her kicking. :D Victory!

Meanwhile, Caiden and Liam had an instructor of their very own, and Caiden was attempting to bounce off the stairs, sliding back and forth in imitation of the older kids on the other side of the pool who were swimming laps, and heading right on out into the deep with the instructor. Absolutely fearless. I was explaining to my friend how part of the benefit of swimming lessons is that I REALLY need this boy to know how to swim! He's been convinced since birth that he's a fish and he already knows how to swim. Except he can't. It's made for some pretty terrifying moments and so I've been looking forward to the lessons just as much as the kids, knowing that (hopefully and with a pinch of luck), he'll learn to be safe in the water. 

Well, they both made it through the lesson without further incident and I was *really* impressed. They started holding on to the instructor, then a paddle board, and then by themselves with the instructor just holding them up while they paddled and kicked. They practiced putting mouths in to blow bubbles, floating on their back, and in the end they both jumped in to the instructors' arms. Complete success!

After the lesson was over, of course the kids didn't want to go home so we went over to the hot tub next to the pool. It didn't seem that deep and there were quite a few small kids in there, so we let the kids in and told them to stay at the edge and near the stairs. They did. Until Caiden forgot to hold on to the wall and stepped just a little too far out. He wasn't over his head, but he was certainly getting swamped and scared. So I grabbed him by the arm, hauled him out of the pool and we had a little talk about what to do if that should happen again (kick off the ground and reach for the wall), along with a LOT of reinforcement of Stay Close To The Edge Please. 

Well. Anyone who knows my son knows that he is perfectly capable of learning the rules, explaining the rules, understanding the rules, and then having even the concept of having a rule to begin with fly out of his head as soon as he gets excited. Two minutes after he got back in the hot tub, he headed out straight across the middle to walk to the other side. 

DO YOU KNOW THAT DAMN HOT TUB IS DEEPER IN THE MIDDLE?!?!?!?!?!?

Yup. 

Picture me, at the edge, fully clothed, phone in hand, backpack and purse dangling from my arms, talking to my friend with one eye on the kids. 

Picture Caiden. Suddenly in the MIDDLE of the hot tub. Completely underwater. Kicking for all he's worth and trying to reach for the edge. And not being able to. He wasn't even able to get his face above the water. 

I dropped *everything* from my hands straight onto the deck, leaned as far over as I could and tried to snatch his hand. Missed. 

Tried again. 

Missed. 

It was one of those moments I have very rarely had in my life and hope to never experience again where the edges of the world disappear, you see nothing but the horror immediately in front of you, and you don't hear a single sound. 

I didn't think, I just jumped in. I grabbed my baby, hauled him over the edge into my friend's waiting arms and was halfway out again myself when the lifeguard appeared. In the pool's defense, the hot tub is not a "lifeguarded" area. And still he was running over as fast as he could. Absolutely no blame on the pool or their staff at all. Before I could even let go of Caiden (who is, by the way, completely unphased, a little pissed at the "small pool" and was *immediately* demanding to go back in and try it again....NOT ON YOUR LIFE LITTLE MAN), another lifeguard had showed up with towels for me, my friend had rescued and dried my phone, and a completely random mother was pulling my backpack out of a puddle while explaining to Rebecca what had happened. 

God bless that woman, instead of judging me for my son almost drowning, she was very clearly explaining to my daughter (who managed to miss it all except the part where suddenly Momma was standing in the hot tub), "Well, you have an amazing and wonderful mother! Your brother was a little bit, um, deep. You see, he couldn't find the wall....anyway, your wonderful mother pulled him out, that's all! She just got a little wet, you see. Did you know you have an amazing and wonderful mother? I bet she could use a hug!"

The head instructor who I mentioned before made her way over, and SHE apologized to ME! She also THANKED ME for "being willing to just jump in there yourself". Honest to god. These Oregonians are just so frickin' nice it makes you want to cry. We did have a nice little conversation about Caiden's complete and utter lack of any sense of self-preservation and she mentioned that she had "noticed that" during his lesson. She promised that they'll gear his lessons toward early independent swimming with a touch of "how do you rescue yourself" and make sure to keep an extra eye on him. 

He's just so damn sure he can swim and he gets SO excited in water. 

So, while every fiber of my motherhood is telling me to never go back to that pool again, all rational sense and reason is telling me to go back and finish up those lessons. This kid is never going to be safe around water until he can SWIM.

How did it all end? On the ride home (soaking the car completely in my still dripping clothing and squishing sneakers), I asked them what they thought of their first lesson. 

Answer? They loved it. They adored it. They don't want to get out of the pool. Can they go back tomorrow? Can they do it again? They want to practice the froggy swim again. They want to float on their backs. Caiden might want to be a lifeguard when he grows up. Rebecca wants to be on a swim team when she's a teenager. 

WHEN ARE WE GOING BACK TO THE POOL, MOM???????????

I suppose I ought to say that's a successful first lesson, huh?

Now if only my hands could stop shaking....