When To Swim?

I promise that I will have at least one more post with pictures before NaBloPoMo ends this week. We took some pictures with a borrowed camera in Bend, but I haven't had the camera and the computer together to be able to get the photos off yet.

A few summers ago, when Darcy was almost three, we enrolled her in swimming classes in Simi Valley. They offered classes for her age, but they really didn't go well and I thought her instructor was pretty clueless about how to deal with preschoolers. Later, I actually read a little bit about swimming lessons and found that most advice on the topic says that she was too young. It kinda ticked me off that they accepted her as a student if it's not generally recommended. She didn't lose her love of water, but she gained some fears and stubbornness around learning to swim.

So I've been hesitating a bit about putting her back into swimming lessons and although I kept meaning to do it, I never actually took the steps to sign her up until quite recently. She needs to be able to swim sooner rather than later because the child has no fear of water whatsoever. She continues to try to walk right into the ocean any time she is near it. 

Her first lesson was today. I was nervous about how she was going to act when it actually came time for the lesson, but she was great. She did her usual Darcy thing and talked to everyone else (mostly much older kids) who were waiting for their lessons. And she told me, "I'm going to go underwater without even being teached how!" (We'll work on those irregular past tenses some other time.) 

Parents aren't allowed to stay near the pool for lessons, so I took a walk during a lovely sunset while she swam. I peeked in the window a few times and saw her laughing and talking pretty much non-stop, but also doing all the things that Josh-her-instructor told her to do. She let him help her start floating on her back and kicking on her back, both with her ears under water. She fights me if I try to do that as if I were attempting to drown her. Which is clearly not the case. All in all, I think swim lesson was a hit today and she's looking forward to Wednesday's lessons. The great thing about our pool is that sessions are just two weeks long with two lessons each week, so there's not a lot of commitment or pressure. If she likes these, we'll sign her up for another two weeks in January or February. Or March. It all depends on her level of interest and excitement.