Swimming Lessons and Such

The lazy hot days of July and August are speeding swiftly by. A few more months and we'll only be dreaming of the hot hot sun, wading pools in the yard, garden fresh vegetables and swimming lessons. We're trying to soak up as much of it as we can. Caroline enjoys laying out on the lawn chair and relaxing. Both kids have had a blast taking four wheeler rides with Daddy. Uncle Alan and Aunt Heather were kind enough to loan us their four wheeler one Saturday so that Ezra and Daddy could go have some alone time. The one Saturday turned into a whole week and both kids took rides each night before or after dinner. They wore either their bike helmets or Daddy's much too big motorcycle helmet.

Yes, we have regressed to the old posts where Ezra never had pants on :)

As for swimming lessons...I'm afraid it's not all warm and fuzzy. I had mediocre hopes for Ezra with swimming lessons. I knew he'd probably freak out getting into the pool for the first time with a stranger. And I knew that the location we were using was just doing swimming lessons for their first time ever--and so things could be a little rocky. All of the above was true. He freaked out even more than I thought he would. They had way too few teachers and no life guard. Things were not good that first day. I got soaked sitting on the edge holding a screaming Ezra and trying to force him into the water. Aye, yi, yi. But things got better each day. I decided I'd be happy if he either: a.) had fun or b.) learned something--asking for both was way too much at this point. But, in the end he had a blast and even started to learn a thing or two. He can almost float and he has no trouble going under water and opening his eyes. He's gotten better at kicking too. We didn't sign up for a second session of lessons this year. But we might be figuring out a new teacher and pool--more on that later.

Yep, that's a grown man as a teacher. He's the owner's brother and when they didn't have enough teachers, he ended up suiting up and taking control of all the little crying kids who wouldn't get into the pool. It turned out to be a good thing since Ezra loved him. Also, while the other classes had 10-15 kids per 1-2 teachers--Ezra and another little boy were in a semi-private lesson with just the two of them!

I'm glad we did it--but I'm also glad it's over!