Swimming lessons – day one

We enrolled Elijah in swimming lessons at the home of a family who goes to our church. We knew it was more of a “survivor” style class – meaning that at the end Eli would be able to get himself to the edge of the pool if he fell in. Nothing fancy, just the ability to save himself. :) I knew there would be faces underwater, throwing them in to the deep end, etc., and no flotation devices or goggles. Oh baby!

I had prepared Eli the last few weeks for the “worst case scenario” of what they were going to do to him. He knew they were going to put him underwater, he knew he’d have to swim with his face in the water, etc. But he also knew that Miss Anne would not let him drown.

Tiny terrified children . . .

He seemed excited and said he wasn’t going to cry, but I thought that was going to not be the case. The first day they asked us to go inside the sunroom so the kids could focus on Miss Anne and her directions instead of searching out mommy and pleading for her to take them out of the pool.

Well, Eli did awesome! True to his word, he did not cry at all! The first thing they did was have him hold on to Miss Anne’s hands, then look at her toes, and then he went underwater for about 3-4 seconds (it felt like an eternity that first time, to me at least!). They did that a few times, and then Miss Anne had him swim, with his head down in the water, to the edge of the pool a few times.

*splutter splutter*

SWIM! SWIM! SWIM!

After the dunking and the swimming, Miss Anne took Eli to the deep end of the pool, placed him in the water and he had to swim with his head down to the ladder. He did great!!! I was very surprised! The did that another time or two, and then Miss Anne took him about halfway between the board and the side and THREW HIM IN! I yelled, “She just threw him in the water!” and I couldn’t believe it. But the little fish just motored to the edge of the pool! She did that to him one more time and he did awesome.

Eli’s biggest complaint was that it was cold. He did not like that at all. He asked if he could wear his winter coat to swim lessons. :) I did feel bad about that because it is very cold in the morning this week for some odd reason. He’s doing awesome though! I can’t wait to see what he’s doing at the end of the week if he’s already being thrown in the deep end on the first day!