Swimming Lessons

I finally got Ashe scheduled for swimming lessons and he had his first one this past Tuesday. I've been meaning to do this for forever, but with three kids to reign in, the time always seemed to slip away. If you remember, the first day of school for Xavier and Ashe, I took advantage of having only one kid around to take care of this errand.

Lessons are each Tuesday and Thursday evening for 39 minutes. J and I decided to alternate taking him. J had the first shift.

When the pair came home, Ashe was extremely excited about how much fun his lesson was. He told me all about how he out his face in the water and wasn't scared. And how he will be a super duper swimmer by next week. I looked to J for a more unbiased account. It was nowhere near as enthusiastic as Ashes.

Out of five kids, only one kid was worse than Ashe in following directions. But that kid got better within ten minutes of the lesson. Ashe would be told to kick and keep kicking while the instructor moved on to help another kid. Instead, Ashe would stop and would start singing loudly, and off key, and making general goofy sounds.

When he was told to swim to the stairs, instead, Ashe grabbed the teacher by the neck, terrified of letting go, and almost drowned his instructor.

When he was asked to jump in the water to be caught by the instructor, Ashe had a melt down, sobbing, and clinging to the pool rim as if his life was on the line.


Usually when we're in the water this kid has no fear.

So his five year old assessment that he will be swimming like a pro by next week seems a little premature. I get swim duty next time, and I'll be interested to see how he does.