You Can Say It Went Swimmingly....

Today was Michael's first swim class and overall, I have to say it went pretty well!

While we were waiting for class to start, Michael enjoyed looking at the pool and all the kids playing in it.

When it was our turn to get into the water, Michael took to it immediately, laughing and splashing. However, as we were in it for a couple of minutes, he became a bit more reserved and even started making noises of malcontent. Not crying, but definitely not laughing either!!

Michael was the youngest of the group, probably by about a year. There is one little boy who may be closer to him in age, but by and large, most of the kiddos were 2+. If memory serves me right, there are about 5 other kids in the class with their moms.

The lifeguard/instructor was really great and literally had the kids "plunge right in" to being in the pool. After the hokey-pokey, she came around and had each kid go under water for a brief moment. Most of the kids were not big fans, and Michael fit into that category. For the first time being underwater, who could blame him?

He cried, but even that didn't last too long, but he was definitely a lot more unsure about the whole venture from that point on. Even though he wasn't crying, he clung to my shoulder and it was difficult to peel him off in order to do the next exercises! He wasn't upset, but he just needed that extra security, I think. I thought it was kind of sweet.

I have to hand it to the instructor. It must be hard working with a bunch of little kids who, every time you try something new, half of them wind up crying! But she was really patient, didn't force any kids, but at the same time really tried to get them out of their comfort zone, since that is how they learn.

The types of things the instructor had us do with the kids were having them hold on to the wall and walk their hands along it. Michael held on to the wall but didn't quite get the concept of moving along too well. After that, she had us put the kids out of the pool and then we encourage them to jump back in while we catch them. Because Michael was so keen on holding on to me, it actually allowed him to do this exercise pretty well! Everytime I peeled him off and sat him on the wall, he literally hurled himself into my arms.

At this point, he started to relax a little bit, and when the instructor came around and passed out rings, and ping pong balls for the kids, he started to feel more in his element. He liked it when I blew bubbles and started laughing a lot and tried to imitate that sound on the ping pong ball. Of course, the goal was to get him to blow bubbles in the water, but we'll take it one step at a time. I just was glad he was having fun.

We did a few more exercises, such as having them hold their arms out like an airplane while they "float" on their tummies and he liked that one alright while I held him and pushed him all along the water, but he did not like the backfloating!

After we got out of the pool and I bundled him in his towel, he was in such a silly mood and kept looking back at the pool and laughing, which, I'll interpret to mean, "Wait..are we done? I know I was kind of scared during it, but it was kind of fun, Mom!" When I got him home, he continued being really silly, laughing for no reason and wrestling with the towel. So that's a good sign!

We'll see tomorrow as we go into the pool whether he is excited or whether he gets upset "No! Not back here!" But I'm very optimistic because he did really, really well. Even though he was the youngest, all the kids cried at some point in the class, and Michael actually cried the least of just about all of them. Some of the kids were just upset the whole class long...so I'm very pleased with it. I went in anticipating he would be upset the whole time (just trying to prepare myself for the worst) and I have to say he did very well for his first experience at a new, and maybe even scary thing and we actually got a handful of laughs out of it!