Swimming at Night
A friend of ours recently gave us a pool light. We turned it on last night and the kids and I got in tonight to swim in response to the incredibly hot and muggy day we've had. They have not swam at night in our pool all summer, so this was quite a treat! However, we had already put all of the pool toys away, so we couldn't find Leah's arm swimmy things. Didn't seem to phase her a bit, she just said, "then I'll just swim to you without them on, Mommy!" This might not sound like anything special unless you knew that all summer (until a month ago) Leah spent all of her time in the pool with flotation devices on and clinging to the ladder. She would not let go for anything...months...if I made her let go and just held her in the pool, she would scream and scream till I put her back on her safe ladder. It drove me crazy (being the swim teacher I am!), but sometime in August she decided that she would swim to me with her arm floaties on, and since then she's been all over the pool, face in, reaching & pulling, floating on her back, etc. Huge change, but still with a flotation device. I did NOT expect anything more this summer from her, so swimming completely unassisted was not something i was pushing.We got in the pool and before I knew it, she had jumped off the ladder to me and swam with her face in to me! I gave her a push back and she was doing this for the entire 45 minutes or so we were in the pool. She was doing freestyle, streamlining and freestyle kick, breastroke arms, just floating...most of the time she was making it about halfway across the pool before she'd grab onto me for a breath! She was so excited and proud, and of course we all made a big deal of her, which she loved :) No pictures due to the darkness and the fact that I was in the pool...but i'm sure we'll have some soon. Swim team is in this girl's future for sure!!!
1 comment:
We had that exact same experience with Jackson at the beginning of the summer.
Jason took the kids to his mom's for a week and threw him into the middle of the pool because he would not put his legs down to realize he could stand. I do not advocate this type of swim instruction, but it worked for him.
After that, he was much better about swimming around with floaties. Soon, he was swimming around without floaties.
I think it helps that Jason is the one that does most of that stuff because the kids are always braver with him.
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