Swimming Lessons

Grace just finished up her second round of swimming lessons today and I have to say she has really improved from her first round of lessons last spring. Such a change in maturity in such a short span of time! At the end of her first round of Pre-Level 1 lessons her greatest improvement was confidence (she has that in spades!) and she needed to practice floating and listening. Funny how that listening part hasn't changed. Hmmmm. Today's report card listed her greatest improvement as putting her face in the water and she needs to practice her floats. Her swim instructor said she's doing really well and showed a lot of improvement which I heartily agree with. I think finally being brave enough to put her face in the water the last few weeks has really helped and I'm hoping that the next swim class she does she'll get even more confident in the water.

One of the reasons I think Grace did so well this time around is that she had a lot of individual attention. The very first time the class met there were four kids (the max. number per class). Two kids dropped out after that class the other little girl in her class missed the class a few times which meant Grace had individual instruction for a half hour. I think the reason our class was so small was because we had the worst time slot available...12:25 to 12:55pm. That's right. After lunch and at the start of most kids' nap times. While that doesn't matter to Grace since she refuses to nap these days, it does matter to Ethan who desperately needs his after lunch nap. After the first session when Ethan and I sat and watched from the bleachers and he very obviously let me know that he wanted to be in the water too I started bringing his swim diaper and letting him "swim" in the infant pool while Grace had her lesson. Ethan loved playing in the water and "swimming like a fishie" and playing with the purple plastic toys. Swim lessons start at 3 so he's got another year before he can take lessons too.

I asked Grace if she wanted to sign up for gymnastics or swim lessons after Christmas and she wants to do swim lessons again so I'll probably sign up for the same crappy time slot in the hopes that everyone else will avoid it and get another small class. Or maybe not. Today Ethan refused to nap once we got home from swimming and that might have changed my mind. A toddler who misses his nap is not a fun toddler to spend time with.